NOV  l  <t  1915 


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BR  100  .S77  1915 
Strickland,  Francis  Lorette 
1871- 

Foundations  of  Christian 
belief 


FOUNDATIONS 

OF 

CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

Studies  in  the  Philosophy  of  Religion 


BY 

FRANCIS  L.   STRICKLAND 

Professor  of  Philosophy  in  the  University  of  'West  Virginia, 
formerly  President  of  Simpson  College,  Iowa 


THE  ABINGDON  PRESS 

NEW  YORK  CINCINNATI 


Copyright,  IBIS,  by 
FRANCIS  L.  STRICKLAND 


TO  MY  WIFE 

ANTOINETTE  LOUISE 

HELPFUL  AND  INSPIRING  COMRADE 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Preface 11 

INTRODUCTION 

The  Aim  and  Method  in  the  Philosophy  of  Religion 13 

The  Purpose:  A  Rational  Interpretation  of  the  Religious  Life, 
13.  The  Method  Both  Scientific  and  Philosophic,  18.  Justi- 
fication of  the  Philosophic  Treatment  of  Religion,  18.  His- 
torical-Critical Treatment  of  Sources,  22. 

CHAPTER  I 

Christianity  and  Philosophy 25 

Early  Christianity  and  Philosophy,  25.  Jesus  No  Philosopher, 
26.  The  Early  Christian  Writings  Not  Philosophical,  27. 
Christian  Writings  Soon  Dominated  by  Philosophy,  28.  Clem- 
ent of  Alexandria,  28.  Origen  and  Athanasius,  29.  Augustine, 
30.  Scholasticism,  32.  Dante,  33.  Luther,  34.  Modern 
Philosophy  and  Christianity — Descartes,  34.  Spinoza,  35. 
Hegel,  36.    Lotze,  39.    Eucken,  Ward  and  Bowne,  40. 

CHAPTER  II 

The  Philosophic  World- Views 42 

Philosophy  and  Life,  42.  Religion  a  Great  Fact  in  Life,  43. 
Religion  and  the  Philosophic  World- Views,  .46.  1.  Material- 
ism: Criticism  of  Materialism,  51.  Matter  Incomprehensi- 
ble Apart  from  Mind,  52.  Materialism  and  the  Origin 
of  Life,  55.  Materialism  and  the  Origin  of  Consciousness,  58. 
Materialism  and  Moral  Values,  62.  Materialism  and  Religion, 
64.  2.  Agnosticism:  Meaning  of  Agnosticism,  65.  Kant's 
Agnosticism,  66.  Spencer's  Agnosticism,  67.  The  Sensa- 
tional Theory  of  Knowledge,  68.  The  Agnostic's  Unknow- 
able, 70.  Conclusion,  73.  Agnosticism  and  Christian 
Thought,  74.  S.  Pantheism:  Meaning  of  Pantheism,  77. 
Pantheism  a  Monism,  78.  Pantheism  and  Deism,  78.  Criti- 
cism of  Pantheism,  80.      Pantheism  and  Theism,  82.      Pan- 

5 


6  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

theism  and  the  Moral  Life,  84.  Pantheism  and  Religion,  86. 
4.  The  Christian  World-View:  Theism  the  Only  Christian  World- 
View,  87.  The  Aim  of  Religious  Philosophy,  88.  Christian 
Theism  Outlined,  88.  No  Explanation  of  Creation,  90.  God's 
Moral  Purpose,  92. 

CHAPTER  III 

Knowledge,  Belief,  and  Faith 95 

Religious  Knowledge,  95.  Authority  of  Religion — Its  Basis, 
95.  Divine  Revelation  and  Religious  Authority,  96.  Ex- 
perience the  Ground  of  Religion's  Authority,  98.  The  Nature 
of  Belief,  99.  Religion  Claims  Knowledge,  100.  Analysis  of 
Knowledge,  102.  The  Growth  of  Knowledge,  106.  Evolution 
of  Subject  and  Object,  108.  Logical  Demonstration  and  Knowl- 
edge, 110.  Assumption  and  Knowledge,  111.  Knowledge 
Tested  by  an  Appeal  to  Values,  112.  Knowledge  Vindicated  in 
Experience,  115.  Knowledge  and  Belief — Conclusions,  116. 
Faith,  117.    The  Certainties  of  Faith,  119. 

CHAPTER  IV 

The  Growth  of  the  Christian  Idea  of  God 122 

Christianity  and  Philosophy,  123.  Human  Thought  about 
God  a  Gradual  Development,  124.  Begins  with  Primitive 
Conceptions,  125.  Mythology,  125.  Anthropomorphism,  126. 
The  Lower  and  the  Higher,  126.  Comprehension  of  the  Divine 
Possible  Only  in  Terms  of  Human  Experience,  128. 

CHAPTER  V 

The  Meaning  and  Implications  of  Personality 133 

The  Fundamental  Elements  of  Personality,  133.  Personality 
and  Freedom,  135.  Meaning  of  Freedom,  136.  Meaning  of 
Determinism,  137.  Weakness  of  Determinism,  138.  Deter- 
minism and  Truth,  140.  Determinism  and  Moral  Responsi- 
bility, 141.  Modified  Determinism,  143.  Determinism  and 
Character,  144.  Determinism  and  Repentance,  145.  Our 
Consciousness  of  Freedom,  146.  The  Abstract  Problem  of 
Freedom  or  Determinism  Insoluble,  147.  Freedom  and  Life, 
148.  Meaning  of  Freedom,  149.  Freedom  Not  Lawlessness,  150. 
Freedom  and  Monism,  152.  Grounds  for  Affirming  Freedom, 
153.  Creative  Thought  Points  to  Freedom,  153.  Freedom 
Fundamental  to  Personality,  156.  Moral  Love  and  Personality, 
157.  Importance  of  the  Feelings,  158.  Personality  Grows  Out 
of  Social  Relations,  160.    Conclusion,  160. 


CONTENTS  7 

PAGE 

CHAPTER  VI 

Divine  Personality 162 

Limitation  Not  an  Essential  Element  in  Personality,  162.  Ob- 
jections to  Thinking  of  God  as  Personal,  163.  An  Abstract 
"Absolute"  Serves  No  Useful  Purpose,  166.  Moral  Relation 
Involves  Obligation,  166.  Speculative  Conception  of  God  Re- 
sults in  Practical  Atheism,  167.  God's  Limitations  Self-imposed, 
169.    Divine  Personality  the  Only  Basis  of  Religion,  170. 

CHAPTER  VII 

Conceptions  op  the  Divine  Activity 173 

God's  Being  Manifested  in  His  Activity,  173.  1.  Transcendence: 
Meaning  of  Transcendence,  174.  Resulting  View  of  Creation, 
175.  Leads  to  False  Idea  of  Nature's  Independence,  176.  2.  Im- 
manence: Meaning  of  Immanence,  179.  God  "In  the  World"  Not 
Spatially,  but  Dynamically,  179.  Meaning  of  Natural  Law,  182. 
Creation  is  the  Eternal  Manifestation  of  Divine  Energy,  182. 
Personality  Saves  Immanence  from  Pantheism,  186. 

CHAPTER  VIII 

The  Revelation  op  God  in  Nature 188 

Meaning  of  Revelation  in  Nature,  188.  Adaptations  in  Nature, 
189.  Evolution  and  the  Design  Argument,  190.  Divine  Purpose 
and  the  Problems  of  Providence — Conclusion,  191. 

CHAPTER  LX 

The  Revelation  op  God  in  the  Non-Christian  Religions...  .  196 

Modern  Knowledge  of  the  Great  Religions  of  the  East,  196. 

All  Great  Religions  Born  in  Asia,  197.     Great  Truths  Found  in 

the  Oriental  Faiths,  197.     Non-Christian  Religions  a  Phase  of 

the  Divine  Revelation,  200.     Weakness  of  the  Ethnic  Religions, 

201. 

CHAPTER  X 

The  Revelation  op  God  in  Human  Personality 203 

The  Revelation  Through  Nature  Not  Sufficient  for  a  Moral 
Religion,  204.  Personal  Relations  Demanded,  205.  Speculative 
Objections,  206.  "God  is  Love,"  207.  Moral  Love  Made 
Known  Only  Through  Personality,  209.  God  Revealed  in 
Particular  Personalities,  210.  God  Revealed  in  Humanity,  211. 
Most  Perfectly  in  Jesus  Christ,  212.  Significant  Facts  Pointing 
to  This,  213.  Divinity  of  Jesus,  215.  Divinity  Revealed 
Through  Humanity,  216.    The  Divine  in  the  Human,  217. 


8  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER  XI 

The  Revelation  of  God  in  Individual  Experience 219 

Revelation  of  God  Through  Individual  Experience,  219.  The 
Objective  Reference  in  Sense-Experience,  220.  "Subjective" 
Objects  of  Thought,  221.  Meaning  of  Subjective  and  Objective, 
222.  Conversion  of  Paul,  223.  Perfectly  Real  to  Paul,  224. 
Objectively  Real,  226.  Was  a  Divine  Call  "Spoken"  to  Paul? 
226.  God  "Spake";  the  Essential  Meaning,  227.  Prayer:  The 
Christian  View  of  Prayer,  230.  Alwaj's  According  to  God's 
Will,  231.  Prayer  Not  a  Form  of  Physical  Energy,  232.  Knowl- 
edge of  God's  Purposes  May  Limit  Our  Prayers,  233.  An- 
swers to  Prayer  a  Fact  of  Experience,  234.  Another  Objection, 
236.    "Subjective"  Value  of  Prayer,  237. 


CHAPTER  XII 

The  Bible  as  a  Record  of  Divine  Revelation 239 

The  Bible  a  Record  of  Human  Experiences  in  which  God  Has 
Made  Himself  Known,  240.  The  Facts  About  the  Bible,  242. 
The  Bible  Interpreted  in  the  Light  of  Experience,  243.  Author- 
ity of  Bible  Not  Grounded  in  Inerrancy,  244.  The  Bible  Is 
First  a  Human  Record,  244.  The  Epistles,  247.  The  Gospels, 
248.  The  Growth  of  the  New  Testament,  250.  Meaning  of 
Inspiration,  251.  The  Progressive  Nature  of  Revelation,  253. 
The  Bible  and  Other  Sacred  Writings,  254.  The  Supremacy  of 
the  Bible,  256.  Redemption  the  Great  Purpose  of  the  Christian 
Revelation,  259. 

CHAPTER  XIII 

The  Place  of  the  Supernatural  in  the  Christian  Revelation  262 
Origin  of  Belief  in  the  Supernatural  in  Early  Religion,  263.  The 
Problem,  264.  Modern  Tendency  to  Depreciate  Importance  of 
Miracle,  264.  Value  of  Miracle  for  Christian  Faith,  265. 
Meaning  of  "Supernatural"  and  "Miracle",  267.  Divine 
Purpose  in  a  Moral  World  Order,  271.  God  as  Personal  Implies 
His  Moral  Purposes,  273.  Divine  Purpose  Realized  in  the  His- 
toric Christian  Revelation  Through  Miracle,  275.  Miracles  and 
Christian  Faith,  278.  Miracles  and  Historic  Christianity,  279. 
Belief  in  the  Supernatural  a  Practical  Demand  of  Faith,  281. 


CONTENTS  9 

PAGE 

CHAPTER  XIV 

The  Christian  Faith  in  Immortality 283 

Belief  in  Life  After  Death  in  Early  Religions,  283.  In  Religion 
of  Assyria  and  Babylonia,  283.  In  Early  Aryan  Religion,  284. 
In  Religion  of  Ancient  Egypt,  286.  Hebrew  Beliefs,  287.  Im- 
mortality in  the  New  Testament,  290.  Faith  of  the  Early 
Christians  Based  on  the  Teaching  of  Jesus,  290.  The  Christian 
Faith  in  Immortality,  291.  Foundation  of  this  Faith  in  Immor- 
tality, 294.  The  Teaching  of  Jesus,  294.  The  Resurrection  of 
Jesus  from  the  Dead,  295.  Grounds  for  the  Christian  Belief  in 
Immortality  from  Science,  298.  Grounds  of  Belief  in  Personal 
Immortality — from  Philosophy,  306.  Faith  in  Life  Beyond 
Death  a  Spiritual  Achievement,  316. 


PREFACE 

These  pages  are  addressed  to  all  who  have  an  inter- 
est in  the  deeper  problems  of  present-day  religious 
thinking.  The  purpose  is  to  draft  sound  philosophy 
into  the  service  of  religion.  Thoughtful  men  and 
women  who  love  the  Christian  faith  not  infrequently 
find  their  horizons  of  knowledge  widening  and  some 
of  their  fundamental  religious  conceptions  undergoing 
change.  When  this  happens  the  fogs  of  perplexity 
and  doubt  are  apt  to  drift  in.  It  is  hoped  that  these 
pages  may  afford  some  guidance  to  thought,  so  that 
even  though  modifications  of  belief  may  become  neces- 
sary, the  deeper  convictions  may  not  be  weakened  nor 
religious  faith  lose  its  spiritual  content.  Religion  is 
not  primarily  a  matter  of  clear  or  correct  belief ;  it  is 
an  experience  of  the  soul  entered  into  through  faith, 
obedience,  and  love.  But  clear  thinking  on  the  great 
fundamental  issues  is  of  prime  importance.  The  soul 
does  not  generally  nurture  great  convictions  while 
reason  is  groping.  And  clear  and  strong  Christian 
thinking  is  very  necessary  if  the  Christian  Church  is 
to  make  an  authoritative  appeal  to  the  life  of  to-day. 

We  shall  attempt  to  discuss  some  fundamental 
matters  in  the  philosophy  of  religion.  The  method 
will  not  be  that  of  abstract  speculation.  We  shall  con- 
sider fundamental  truths  in  the  philosophical  spirit 
but  from  the  standpoint  of  religious  values.  Matters 
of  doctrinal  theology  and  literary  criticism  which  do 

not  belong  to  a  philosophical  treatment  of  religion  are 

ll 


12  PREFACE 

excluded,  the  purpose  being  broadly  constructive,  not 
critical.  Christianity  is  the  most  complete  expression 
of  the  religious  consciousness  and  the  summit  of  the 
divine  revelation.  It  is  the  only  faith  great  enough 
and  pure  enough  and  divine  enough  to  meet  the  needs 
of  the  soul. 

My  debt  to  my  teachers  is  great.  Foremost  among 
these  was  the  late  lamented  Dr.  Borden  P.  Bowne,  of 
Boston  University.  I  also  acknowledge  guidance  and 
help  from  the  scholars  whose  works  are  cited  in 
notes  at  the  end  of  several  chapters.  My  thanks 
are  due  to  my  friends  Professor  Albert  C.  Knudson, 
of  Boston  University  School  of  Theology,  and  Pro- 
fessor William  North  Rice,  of  Wesleyan  University, 
for  valuable  criticism  after  they  read  a  portion  of  the 
manuscript. 

If  these  pages  shall  help  some  to  see  more  clearly 
that,  in  spite  of  the  changes  wrought  in  human  think- 
ing by  modern  science  and  philosophy,  "the  founda- 
tions of  God  stand  fast,"  they  will  have  found  a 
justification. 

Francis  L.  Strickland. 


INTRODUCTION 

THE  AIM  AND  METHOD  IN  THE  PHILOSOPHY 
OF  RELIGION 

The  Purpose:  A  Rational  Interpretation  of  the  Religious 
Life.  In  the  philosophy  of  religion  we  seek  a  system- 
atic and  rational  interpretation  of  religious  expe- 
rience. And  here  we  use  the  term  "religious  experi- 
ence" in  its  broadest  sense  as  including  all  human 
thought  and  action  which  has  to  do  with  religion.  It 
includes  all  fundamental  religious  beliefs,  and  all  acts 
of  worship  and  other  practices  which  exist  because  of 
men's  belief  in  a  world  of  supersensuous  or  spiritual 
reality.  It  is  the  task  of  philosophy  to  interpret  our 
conscious  experience — to  seek  those  basal  principles 
or  truths  which  give  to  our  conscious  experience  in  all 
its  infinite  variety  a  fundamental  unity  and  harmony. 
And  surely  no  one  will  deny  that  religion  is  a  great 
and  exceedingly  important  part  of  human  experience. 
Religion  is  a  fact  in  the  life  of  every  man.  He  who 
makes  no  profession  of  having  had  an  "experience  of 
religion"  in  the  commonly  accepted  sense  of  a  personal 
crisis  in  religious  thought  and  feeling,  nevertheless 
has  on  every  hand  an  experience  of  religion  in  the 
philosophical  sense.  The  evidences  of  religion  are  all 
about  him,  in  human  customs  and  institutions,  in 
the  beliefs,  habits  and  practices  of  men.  Philosophy 
of  religion,  then,  in  the  broad  sense,  is  the  attempt 

13 


14  INTRODUCTION 

rationally  to  interpret  a  great  and  important  part  of 
our  experience.  Leaving  aside  now  the  question  of 
the  origin  of  religion  or  its  ultimate  ground  of  valid- 
ity, the  fact  remains  that  religion  exists — and  that  its 
manifestations  comprise  a  considerable  portion  of  our 
life  experience.  For  this  reason  the  justification  of 
philosophy  of  religion  rests  upon  precisely  the  same 
grounds  as  that  of  philosophy  itself.  Indeed,  it  is 
implied  in  what  has  just  been  said  that  philosophy  of 
religion  is  but  the  aim  and  method  of  philosophy 
applied  to  the  interpretation  of  a  definite  portion  of 
experience. 

It  will  be  seen  at  once  that  the  scope  of  religion  and 
the  complexity  of  the  problems  it  presents  make  its 
treatment  by  a  philosophical  method  far  from  simple, 
for  in  the  systematic  study  of  the  religious  life  we 
are  not  dealing  with  forces  which  are  constant  and 
invariable  like  those,  for  instance,  dealt  with  in 
physics.  We  are  dealing,  rather,  with  phases  of  life 
as  they  manifest  themselves  in  those  variables  named 
human  belief,  emotion  and  will.  In  other  words,  we 
deal  with  life  on  the  plane  of  the  personal.  This 
makes  a  philosophy  of  religion  particularly  difficult. 
It  also  makes  it  all  the  more  important  that  we 
develop  a  proper  method,  a  method  which  will  recog- 
nize constantly  that  when  we  deal  with  religion  we  are 
dealing  with  personal  life,  and  with  a  great  factor  in 
human  history  which  has  always  stood  in  the  closest 
relation  to  the  practical  concerns  of  life. 

But  any  attempt  to  find  a  rational  and  systematic 
interpretation  of  religion  must  take  account  of  all 
the  essential  elements  of  the  religious  life.  Far  too 
many   attempts  at   religious  philosophy   have  been 


INTRODUCTION  15 

partial  and  one-sided  because  there  was  a  failure  to 
recognize  that  religion  involves  the  whole  personality. 
Thus  Kant  wrote  his  "Religion  within  the  Limits  of 
the  Purely  Rational."  His  ideal  was  a  rational  and 
ethical  religion  freed  from  all  elements  of  emotion 
and  mysticism.  It  is  not  strange  that  under  this 
treatment  he  makes  religion  to  be  little  more  than  a 
performance  of  our  duties  because  of  the  obligation 
laid  upon  us  by  God's  will  and  the  moral  law  which 
embodies  that  will.  And  Kant's  error  has  been  fol- 
lowed by  many  others,  with  the  result  that  religion 
has  often  been  set  forth  as  a  matter  of  correct  intel- 
lectual conceptions  under  the  mistaken  apprehension 
that  if  men  can  only  be  made  to  see  the  truth  clearly, 
they  will  govern  their  lives  by  it. 

Schopenhauer's  treatment  of  religion  was  equally 
onesided  and  its  outcome  even  worse.  He  revolted 
from  Kant's  doctrine  that  we  can  never  know  things 
as  they  really  are.  He  affirmed  that  in  the  human  will 
we  find  a  way  of  passing  from  a  purely  relative  knowl- 
edge of  the  world  to  a  knowledge  which  represents 
objective  reality.  But  noting  also  how  weak  and 
inadequate  the  human  will  is,  and  how  it  leads  men 
into  all  sorts  of  terrible  evil,  he  developed  a  pessim- 
istic view  of  the  world  and  wrote  a  philosophy  of  reli- 
gion in  which  patient  resignation  appears  as  the  chief 
human  virtue.  The  best  hopes  of  life,  according  to 
Schopenhauer,  are  those  of  personal  extinction.  Thus 
his  one-sided  emphasis  of  the  will  led  him  out  into  a 
religion  akin  in  spirit  to  Buddhism  and  far  away  from 
Christian  ideals.  The  over-emphasis  of  sensibility  also 
in  religion  has  produced  all  manner  of  fanaticism  and 
extravagance.    "Feeling  good"  has  loomed  up  so  large 


16  INTRODUCTION 

as  an  element  in  religion  that  "doing  good"  has  too 
often  found  a  very  subordinate  place. 

Psychology  has  taught  us  to  study  the  mental  life 
under  three  aspects,  namely,  thought,  feeling,  and  will. 
These  are  the  inseparable  elements  of  personality. 
And  any  attempt  to  set  forth  the  meaning  of  the  reli- 
gious life  must  reckon  with  each.  From  this  it  will 
be  seen  that  psychology  must  be  looked  to  to  afford 
us  light  upon  many  of  the  problems  wThich  a  philo- 
sophic interpretation  of  religion  raises.  The  facts  of 
religion  are  of  a  very  different  nature  from  the  facts 
of  biology  or  physics  or  chemistry.  Religious  facts 
are  the  expression  by  living  men  of  the  thoughts,  feel- 
ings, and  volitions  which  possess  them,  while  the  facts 
of  natural  science  are  occurrences  in  a  fixed  mechan- 
ical order.  These  religious  acts  of  men  are,  further- 
more, efforts  to  satisfy  their  pressing  needs — the  need 
of  the  physical  organism  for  food,  the  need  for  pro- 
tection from  the  elements  or  deliverance  from  impend- 
ing evil,  relief  from  the  sense  of  guilt,  the  strengthen- 
ing of  their  hopes.  Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  all  we  can 
know  concerning  the  nature  and  workings  of  the 
human  mind  will  stand  us  in  good  stead  when  we  come 
to  the  problems  of  religion.  Without  some  knowledge 
of  psychology  no  one  can  get  on  in  the  philosophical 
study  of  religion.  Here  is  one  reason  why  the  philos- 
ophy of  religion  developed  late.  It  was  necessary  that 
men  should  first  gain  a  knowledge  of  the  human  mind 
and  its  processes  before  the  vast  mass  of  material 
secured  through  investigation  of  the  life,  beliefs, 
customs,  and  practices  of  primitive  peoples  could  be 
interpreted,  and  the  early  chapters  in  the  history  of 
religion  written. 


INTRODUCTION  17 

Then,  again,  religion  claims  to  be  based  upon 
knowledge.  We  often  use  the  word  "faith"  and  say 
that  faith  is  the  organ  of  religion.  But  this  faith  can- 
not be  regarded  simply  as  the  projection  of  our  fond 
hopes.  To  think  of  faith  as  devoid  of  that  element  of 
certainty  which  we  assume  for  knowledge  is  to  reduce 
faith  to  the  level  of  probability  and  to  set  it  over  in 
sharp  antithesis  to  knowledge.  The  purely  subjective 
side  of  religion  would  remain,  but  that  would  cease  to 
have  authority.  Let  a  man  be  convinced  that  religious 
faith  is  simply  the  projection  of  the  earnest  longings 
and  fond  hopes  of  the  soul,  and  religious  faith  will 
cease  to  hold  him.  A  thoroughgoing  agnosticism 
leaves  no  place  for  religion  except  as  beneficent  con- 
vention or  custom.  But  religion  must  lay  claim  to 
valid  knowledge.  We  shall  take  up  these  matters 
more  fully  in  their  place. 

An  interpretation  of  the  religious  life,  therefore, 
demands  that  we  find  and  set  forth  some  adequate 
grounds  for  religious  certainty.  To  do  this  is  one  of 
the  great  purposes  of  these  studies.  If  we  can  do  this, 
we  shall  see  that  faith  is  but  a  phase  of  knowledge 
and  the  same  foundations  underlie  that  portion  of 
experience  called  religion  as  underlie  the  whole  of 
experience. 

In  these  studies  we  shall  first  seek  to  expound 
briefly  that  philosophic  world- view  upon  which  we 
must  rest  our  fundamental  Christian  conceptions. 
Some  criticism  of  the  world-views  wilich  leave  no 
place  for  Christian  belief  must  be  offered.  From  the 
body  of  Christian  belief  we  shall  endeavor  to  select 
those  great  basal  truths  which  are  fundamental  to 
Christianity.    And  by  Christianity  we  do  not  mean  a 


18  INTRODUCTION 

creed  nor  a  theological  system,  but  a  great  religious 
faith. 

The  Method  Both  Scientific  and  Philosophic.  The  method 
used  by  scholars  in  the  modern  study  of  religion  is 
scientific.  This  means  the  careful  collection  of  facts, 
and  then  the  induction  of  the  principles.  This  is,  in 
a  general  way,  the  method  of  science,  and  it  has 
yielded  rich  results  in  the  hands  of  investigators  in 
the  field  of  religion.  There  is  need  also  for  the  method 
of  philosophy.  The  modern  philosopher  builds  on  the 
results  of  the  scientific  investigator.  On  the  basis  of 
the  facts  gained  he  seeks  the  underlying  principles 
in  the  hope  of  explaining  the  facts  in  their  origin  and 
relation.  These  results  are  to  be  gained  through 
systematic,  rational  reflection.  The  modern  philo- 
sophical method  demands  logical  consistency  of 
course.  Reason  is  supreme,  but  the  experience  of 
generations  of  philosophizing  has  shown  that  abstract 
speculation  is  barren.  Only  as  rational  reflection  con- 
cerns itself  with  the  great  practical  values  of  life  is 
it  able  to  gain  results  which  make  it  worth  the  while. 
The  pathway  to  the  heights  of  truth  does  not  lie 
through  abstract  speculation.  We  therefore  frankly 
confess  that,  while  Ave  shall  follow  the  philosophic 
method  in  our  discussion,  we  shall  try  not  to  lose 
sight  of  the  great  moral  and  religious  values  in  life. 
Too  much  has  been  already  written  in  the  realm  of 
religious  philosophy  from  the  standpoint  of  abstract 
speculation  with  the  result  that  its  value  for  life  has 
been  very  slight. 

Justification  of  the  Philosophic  Treatment  of  Religion. 
The  admissibility  of  the  method  of  rational  reflection 
applied  to  the  study  of  religion  has  been  called  in 


INTRODUCTION  19 

question.  There  are  those  who  hold  that  religion  is 
not  a  proper  subject  for  philosophic  treatment  at  all. 
The  objections  fall  into  two  classes :  first,  from  those 
who  deny  that  we  can  have  any  knowledge,  properly 
speaking,  of  realities  which  lie  beyond  the  senses. 
These  objectors  would  assure  us  that  knowledge  is 
confined  to  the  realm  of  sense-experience  and  those 
things  which  we  may  know  from  reasoning  from  the 
data  furnished  in  sense-experience.  Herbert  Spencer 
is  perhaps  the  most  prominent  thinker  whose  position 
would  necessitate  this  objection.  His  doctrine  has 
come  to  be  recognized  as  typical  of  modern  agnosti- 
cism. It  must  suffice  here  to  say  in  regard  to  such  an 
objection  that  it  is  superficial  and  fails  to  recognize 
the  supersensuous  element  in  all  knowledge.  It  is 
really  not  so  much  an  objection  to  philosophy  as 
applied  to  religion  as  it  is  an  objection  to  sound 
philosophy  itself.  In  Chapter  III  we  shall  attempt 
more  fully  to  dispose  of  this  objection  of  the  agnostic. 
The  second  class  of  objections  to  the  application 
of  the  scientific  method  to  religion  may  be  summa- 
rized as  follows:  It  is  urged  that  religion,  or  reli- 
gious experience,  transcends  mere  knowledge.  It 
implies  a  supernatural  element — a  revelation  or 
communication  of  the  thought  and  will  of  God 
to  the  individual.  Hence  God  has  given  a  special 
revelation.  This  we  must  accept,  and  anything 
further  is  unnecessary.  The  use  of  the  reason,  espe- 
cially a  strict  method  of  research  such  as  is  used  for 
the  discovery  of  finite  knowledge,  is  not  properly  to 
be  applied  to  the  religious  life,  which  always  rests 
upon  the  simple  acceptance  of  a  divine  revelation. 
Of   course   this   objection   is   not   generally   offered 


20  INTRODUCTION 

against  historical  nor  archaeological  studies  hi  reli- 
gion, but  it  is  sometimes  urged  against  all  attempts 
to  formulate  a  philosophy  of  religion  or  to  seek  in 
psychology  any  light  upon  the  facts  of  religious  expe- 
rience. 

But  granting  that  there  is  and  always  must  be  a 
considerable  difference  between  the  facts  dealt  with 
by  natural  science  and  those  which  come  under  our 
observation  when  we  take  up  the  study  of  religion, 
we  may  nevertheless  urge  that  the  acceptance  of  reli- 
gion as  resting  upon  the  foundation  of  a  divine  revela- 
tion in  no  way  forbids  the  full  use  of  reason  in  deal- 
ing with  the  facts  of  the  religious  life. 

For,  upon  what  ground  shall  we  believe  the  revela- 
tion to  be  divine?  And  surely  we  must  believe  it 
divine  in  order  to  accept  it  as  authoritative.  Only 
two  possibilities  are  open :  first,  that  of  an  authority 
external  to  ourselves  which  shall  be  absolute;  or, 
second,  the  recognition  that  there  must  be  grounds 
in  reason  for  the  acceptance  of  the  revelation  as 
divine,  and  hence  authoritative.  The  Eoman  Church 
takes  the  first  position  and  answers  every  attempt 
within  her  borders  to  give  reason  free  play  with  the 
absolute  dictum  of  authority.  The  Church  has  de- 
clared certain  doctrines  to  be  true,  therefore  they 
are  to  be  received  by  all  as  authoritative.  The  Church 
has  set  her  seal  of  approval  upon  certain  books,  there- 
fore they  are  to  be  accepted  by  her  adherents  as  divine 
revelation.  The  second  possibility  is  that  even  though 
a  divine  revelation  be  accepted  as  authority,  there 
must  be  some  grounds  for  such  acceptance,  and  these 
must  lie  in  reason.  The  reason  must  furnish  the 
credentials  for  accepting  the  revelation  as  divine,  and 


INTRODUCTION  21 

if  that  is  so,  it  means  that  the  content  of  the  revela- 
tion must,  on  the  whole,  approve  itself  to  reason. 
Thus  it  appears  that  unless  we  are  ready  to  accept  the 
voice  of  external  authority  as  absolute  and  take  our 
place  beside  the  Romanist,  we  must  leave  for  reason 
an  important  place  in  dealing  with  religion — granting 
fully  that  religion  rests  for  its  foundation,  not  only 
upon  those  truths  which  have  emerged  as  the  result 
of  reasoning,  but  also  upon  truths  which  have  come  as 
revelation.  There  can  be,  then,  no  valid  objection 
against  the  critical  method  as  offered  to  the  study  of 
religion.  It  is  no  less  reverent  to  study,  with  all  the 
help  afforded  by  modern  scientific  knowledge,  God's 
work  in  the  human  spirit  than  it  is  to  study  his  work 
in  the  human  body  or  in  that  larger  human  body  we 
call  society. 

We  do  well  to  remember  that  the  broader  study  of 
Christianity  itself  has  come  by  way  of  a  scientific  and 
philosophic  study  of  primitive  religion  and  then  of 
the  non-Christian  religions.  We  now  speak  freely 
of  the  evolution  of  religion,  but  in  doing  so  we  only 
state  in  brief  and  current  phraseology  the  method  in 
which  the  religious  consciousness  and  life  have  de- 
veloped. And  to  speak  of  the  evolution  of  Chris- 
tianity does  not  mean  that  our  religion  is  of  "natural" 
origin,  but  only  that  it  stands  at  the  summit  of  a 
revelation  of  the  Divine  which  has  mauifested 
itself  in  a  gradually  developing  moral  and  spirit- 
ual consciousness  in  man.  When  Christianity  is 
studied  systematically  beside  the  great  ethnic  faiths, 
the  comparisous  and  the  contrasts  which  emerge 
show  Christianity's  immense  superiority.  Just  as 
evolution  applied  to  humanity  means  that  the  hu- 


22  INTRODUCTION 

man  species  stands  as  the  crown  of  an  upward 
development  of  organic  life  through  countless  ages, 
so  the  evolution  of  Christianity  means  that  our  reli- 
gion is  the  highest  point  in  an  age-long  revelation  of 
God,  beginning  in  the  dim  twilight  of  the  remote  past 
and  ending  in  that  hour  when  God  revealed  his  great 
love  as  a  sufferer  on  Calvary  with  and  for  men,  in 
order  that  through  this  supreme  revelation  men  might 
be  won  for  obedience  to  and  fellowship  with  him. 
This  marks  the  highest  possible  level  of  moral  and 
spiritual  growth. 

Historical-Critical  Treatment  of  Sources.  It  remains  to 
add  a  word  concerning  the  use  of  the  historical-crit- 
ical method  in  the  study  of  religious  literatures  and 
other  sources.  The  method  is  conveniently  called  his- 
torical because  through  historical  research  we  gain 
many  of  the  facts  of  the  religious  life  of  mankind. 
The  sources  for  this  historical  research  are  monu- 
ments, inscriptions,  literary  remains,  etc.,  which  have 
come  down  to  us  from  former  ages.  To  reconstruct 
the  life  and  thought  of  a  former  age  is  the  task  of  the 
historical  critic.  The  method  is  called  critical  because 
the  principles  of  literary  criticism  and  interpretation 
play  an  important  part  in  a  proper  interpretation  of 
these  various  records  which  we  have  received  from 
former  ages.  Other  important  sources  for  the  study 
of  religion  are  the  studies  of  uncivilized  peoples  living 
to-day  in  various  parts  of  the  world  by  scholars  in 
anthropology  and  ethnology,  or  by  travelers,  explor- 
ers, and  missionaries  who  write  from  first-hand  knowl- 
edge. The  number  of  these  source  books  has  greatly 
multiplied  until  now  there  is  hardly  a  spot  in  the 
whole  world  whose  native  tribes  have  not  been  studied 


INTRODUCTION  23 

by  trained  observers  and  the  results  of  the  study 
recorded  in  original  published  works  which  are  avail- 
able to  students  of  ethnology  and  primitive  religion.1 
We  have  sought  in  the  preceding  paragraphs  to 
outline  the  philosophic  method  in  the  study  of  reli- 
gion. We  have  tried  to  set  it  forth  as  the  method  not 
only  for  the  studies  attempted  in  this  volume  but  as 
the  method  followed  by  all  modern  students  of  the 
science  and  philosophy  of  religion.  The  dogmatic 
method  of  treating  religion  with  its  constant  appeal 
to  some  external  authority  is  a  thing  of  the  past 
among  scholars.  In  the  study  of  the  religious  life  and 
of  the  development  of  the  religious  consciousness  the 
method  of  research  must  be  employed.  This  forbids 
that  we  should  generalize  except  in  accordance  with 
facts  furnished  in  experience.  Through  the  method 
of  philosophy  we  seek  the  underlying  relations  and 
the  ultimate  causes  so  far  as  they  may  be  inferred. 
This  is  the  only  method  which  nets  certain  and  per- 
manent results.  In  this  way  only  can  Ave  come  to  the 
conviction  that  the  truths  of  religion  are  in  harmony 
with  the  truths  of  science  and  every  other  realm  of 
human  thinking. 


1  Among  the  most  valuable  and  recent  of  these  works  are  those  by  Tyler,  Frazer  F. 
Ratzel,  A.  W.  Howitt,  and  Spencer  and  Gillen. 


CHAPTER  I 

CHRISTIANITY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

In  a  very  true  sense  the  relation  of  philosophy  to 
religion  is  expounded  and  illustrated  in  the  entire 
discussion  to  follow  in  these  studies.  The  main  pur- 
pose of  this  work  is  to  bring  some  of  the  results  of 
well-matured  philosophy  to  the  service  of  Christian 
thinking.  It  will  be  of  interest  and  profit,  however, 
at  the  outset  to  suggest  a  few  things  concerning  the 
relation  of  historic  Christianity  to  philosophy  as  both 
developed  from  age  to  age;  at  the  same  time  indicat- 
ing some  of  the  conceptions  of  philosophy  which  are 
fitted  to  serve  as  a  rational  norm  for  Christian  teach- 
ing and  experience. 

Early  Christianity  and  Philosophy.  The  aim  of  phi- 
losophy is  primarily  to  satisfy  the  reason,  enabling  us 
to  find  a  systematic  and  rational  interpretation  of 
experience.  Religion,  on  the  other  hand,  is  the  whole 
expression  of  the  human  spirit  in  faith,  beliefs,  wor- 
ship and  conduct  with  reference  to  a  world  of  unseen 
and  eternal  existence.  Our  religious  convictions  come 
from  the  needs  of  the  inner  life.  We  long  to  know 
God  and  persist  in  our  search  after  him,  not  because 
we  hope  to  understand  God  and  find  in  him  a  means 
of  comprehending  the  mysteries  of  existence,  but  be- 
cause we  feel  our  own  need  of  some  one  greater  and 
more  powerful  than  ourselves.     The  Divine  Being  is 

25 


26      FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIxVN  BELIEF 

primarily  an  object  of  our  worship,  not  a  problem  for 
our  intellect.  When  men  seek  only  to  understand 
God,  the  way  of  thought  grows  dark.  All  attempts 
to  comprehend  the  Divine  through  rational  specula- 
tion from  Origen  to  Hegel  end  in  conceptions  which 
are  abstract,  remote,  and  unfitted  to  satisfy  the  needs 
of  the  human  spirit.  Even  in  Christian  theology 
when  we  come  away  from  a  consideration  of  the  so- 
called  "metaphysical  attributes"  of  God,  we  find  we 
have  greatly  multiplied  our  perplexities  at  the  expense 
of  assurance  and  comfort.  While,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  soul's  resolve  to  trust  God  and  to  love  him,  even 
in  those  hours  when  it  seems  most  nearly  impossible 
to  understand  him,  is  an  act  of  faith  and  brings  rest 
to  thought  and  moral  courage. 

Jesus  No  Philosopher.  The  origin  of  Christianity  is 
Jesus  Christ.  We  recognize  fully  that  our  religion 
as  a  great  spiritual  movement  in  history  first  grew  in 
the  rich  soil  of  Judaism.  And  yet  Christianity  was 
no  mere  enlargement  of  Judaism.  Jesus  had,  indeed, 
been  carefully  trained  in  the  faith  of  his  fathers.  The 
words  of  the  Old  Testament  came  easily  and  accu- 
rately from  his  lips.  But  we  do  not  study  his  wonder- 
ful teachings  long  before  becoming  convinced  that  we 
have  here  something  far  beyond  the  spirit  and  pre- 
cepts of  the  Jewish  religion.  Indeed,  Jesus  swept 
away  Judaism  so  far  as  it  was  a  system  of  external 
rites  and  legal  devices  to  gain  the  divine  favor.  The 
keynote  of  Jesus's  teaching  is  that  all  the  demands 
of  the  moral  law  will  be  fully  met  by  a  joyous  love  to 
God  as  the  heavenly  Father,  and  a  fraternal  regard 
for  others  as  brothers  in  the  great  Divine  Family. 
Jesus's  first  followers  were  born  and  bred  in  the  Jew- 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  PHILOSOPHY        27 

ish  faith  and  it  was  difficult  for  them  to  break  the 
bonds  of  Jewish  thought  and  feeling.  But  Christian- 
ity could  not  be  confined  within  the  limits  of  any 
national  faith,  and  in  a  few  years  after  the  death  of 
its  Founder  it  is  being  proclaimed  as  a  spiritual 
message  for  all  mankind. 

Jesus  wrote  nothing.  His  teachings  were  far 
removed  in  both  form  and  spirit  from  philosophy  or 
theology.  He  never  reasoned  his  way  to  the  mighty 
truths  he  taught.  He  simply  took  for  granted  the 
great  fact  of  God  and  spent  his  strength  in  teaching 
men  to  put  the  deepest  and  richest  content  into  their 
thought  of  God  and  his  relation  to  them.  It  is  marvel- 
ous how  Jesus  disregarded  all  intellectual  subtleties 
in  his  teaching  and  with  a  freshness  and  power  which 
we  feel  undiminished  to-day  he  led  men  directly  to  the 
great  truths  of  life  and  destiny. 

The  Early  Christian  Writings  Not  Philosophical.  The 
earlier  writings  of  the  followers  of  Jesus  were  of  a 
thoroughly  practical  and  religious  nature.  They  were 
a  record  of  the  words  and  deeds  of  the  Master.  And 
the  early  Christian  preaching  was  without  doubt  a 
simple  and  direct  appeal  to  accept  Christ  as  the  Son 
of  God,  to  receive  his  teaching  about  God  and  to 
follow  his  simple  but  lofty  plan  of  living.  But  as 
soon  as  the  apostle  Paul  started  to  set  forth  the  Chris- 
tian teaching  with  an  attempt  at  systematic  form  he 
could  not  escape  the  necessity  of  expounding  the 
Christian  conceptions  with  some  reference  to  prevail- 
ing methods  of  thinking.  This  was  especially  the  case 
in  those  writings  which  were  addressed  to  the 
churches  where  the  influence  of  Greek  thought  Avas 
predominant.     And  while  his  later  epistles  still  con- 


28    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

tinue  to  serve  the  great  practical  purpose  of  the  in- 
struction and  exhortation  of  new  converts  to  Chris- 
tianity, yet  there  are  distinct  traces  of  the  influence 
of  philosophy  in  the  New  Testament.  For  example, 
Paul's  teaching  about  the  preexistence  of  Christ,  and 
Christ  as  the  "ideal  man,"  suggest  the  influence  of 
Greek  idealism.  In  the  fourth  Gospel  Saint  John 
has  (assuming  that  the  Gospel  is  from  the  pen  of 
John  the  apostle)  adopted  ideas  from  the  Hellenistic 
philosophy. 

Christian  Writings  Soon  Dominated  by  Philosophy.  For 
several  generations  after  the  close  of  the  age  of  the 
apostles  Christian  writers  were  engaged  with  the  task 
of  defending  Christianity.  This  they  did  for  the  most 
part  by  attempts  to  expound  the  meaning  of  the 
sacred  writings.  They  also  made  attempts  to  system- 
atize Christian  teaching  and  to  interpret  its  meaning. 
Wishing  to  commend  their  doctrines  to  the  educated, 
it  was  natural  that  certain  Christian  apologists 
should  seek  for  points  of  contact  between  Christian 
teaching  and  the  fundamental  ideas  of  the  great 
philosophical  thinkers. 

Clement  of  Alexandria.  The  first  Christian  writer  of 
eminence  to  do  this  was  Clement  of  Alexandria.  By 
the  middle  of  the  second  century  he  had  attempted  to 
set  forth  the  basic  beliefs  of  Christianity  in  systematic 
and  rational  form.  Clement  was  a  master  of  Greek 
philosophy  and  the  significance  of  his  work  lay  in  his 
attempt  to  expound  the  distinctive  conceptions  of 
Christianity  in  such  fashion  as  to  harmonize  them 
with  some  of  the  basal  ideas  of  Greek  idealism. 
Under  the  influence  of  this  philosophy,  he  taught  a 
doctrine  of  God  very  different  from  that  of  the  Jewish 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  PHILOSOPHY       29 

faith.  Jewish  theology  held  to  the  old  Semitic  con- 
ceptions of  the  divine — a  God  who  having  made  the 
world  is  to  be  thought  of  as  separate  from  it.  This 
Jewish  conception  of  God,  while  it  included  moral 
and  personal  elements,  retained  many  of  the  features 
of  the  old  and  crude  anthropomorphism.  Clement, 
on  the  other  hand,  had  asked  profound  questions  con- 
cerning the  relation  of  God  to  finite  existence  and  to 
our  human  knowledge.  The  result  was  a  Christian 
philosophy  of  the  Divine  Existence  wThich  contained 
the  germ-thoughts  developed  by  Origen  and  Atha- 
nasius  into  the  teaching  concerning  God's  relation  to 
the  world  which  we  name  in  modern  philosophic 
phrase  the  divine  immanence.  This  came  clearly  from 
the  influence  of  the  great  Greek  thinkers,  especially 
the  Pythagoreans  and  Plato.  Indeed,  Clement  frankly 
calls  Greek  philosophy  the  schoolmaster  (ncudayuyog) 
of  Christian  thought,  and  expresses  it  as  his  belief 
that  God  inspired  those  philosophers  of  Greece  whose 
teachings  are  in  fundamental  accord  with  the  ideas 
of  Christianity.1 

Origen  and  Athanasius.  In  Clement's  disciple  Origen 
the  strong  influence  of  Greek  idealism  is  quite  as 
marked,  in  both  his  writings  and  those  of  Atha- 
nasius we  find  teachings  which  indicate  clearly  that 
these  Christian  thinkers  have  asked  the  great  ques- 
tion concerning  God's  relation  to  the  world  and  its 
forces,  and  have  answered  it  in  essentially  the  fashion 
that  the  modern  Christian  philosopher  does — by  a 
doctrine  that  God  is  the  ever-present  thought  and  life 
of  the  world ;  that  its  forces  and  processes  constantly 
express  his  will.    Thus  early  in  the  history  of  Chris- 


i  Stromata  i,  28-37. 


30    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

tian  thinking  we  find  this  comprehensive  conception 
of  the  finite  world  as  a  constant  expression  of  God's 
creative  energy — and  all  its  ongoing  forces  as  a  mani- 
festation of  his  divine  will.  It  is  wonderful,  as  John 
Fiske  points  out,  "how  closely  Athanasius  approaches 
the  confines  of  modern  scientific  thought  simply 
through  his  fundamental  conception  of  God  as  the 
indwelling  life  of  the  universe."  2 

Augustine.  But  the  master  mind  of  Western  or 
Latin  Christianity  was  not  Origen  nor  Athanasius, 
but  Augustine.  Following  the  Greek  theologians  and 
the  philosophy  of  Neoplatonism,  Augustine  learned  to 
think  of  God  as  Spirit.  But  refusing  to  accept  the 
Greek  doctrine  that  the  true  nature  of  God  can  never 
be  known,  he  maintained  that  in  Jesus  Christ  we  do 
know  the  real  nature  of  God.  But  now  begin  to 
appear  the  distinctive  elements  of  Augustine's  theol- 
ogy. He  had  a  very  profound  sense  of  the  reality  of 
sin.  The  material  world  is  utterly  evil  and  human 
nature  weak  and  depraved.  Men  are  infected  with 
moral  evil  from  their  very  birth.  This  was  the  doc- 
trine of  "Adamic  sin,"  or  "depravity,"  of  later  theol- 
ogy. The  God  of  infinite  holiness  was  thought  of  as 
having  little  to  do  with  the  depraved  world.  Thus 
grew  up  the  idea  of  "the  bad  world"  as  separated 
from  the  good  God,  the  temporal  and  material  from 
the  spiritual  and  eternal.  This  dualism  ran  through 
all  Augustine's  thinking.  As  the  world  was  thought 
of  as  an  existence  separate  from  God,  but  God  as 
sovereign  over  the  world,  everything  which  takes  place 
in  the  world  was  conceived  as  planned  by  God  before 
the  world  came  into  bein<r.     Here  the  foundations 


2  The  Idea  of  God,  p.  86. 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  PHILOSOPHY        31 

were  laid  for  the  doctrine  of  predestination.  The 
point  to  be  especially  noted  in  this  development  is  the 
conception  of  the  relation  of  the  infinite  to  the  finite. 
God  as  spirit  is  thought  of  as  removed  from  a  mate- 
rial world  which  he  indeed  created,  bnt  which  is  so 
evil  and  depraved  that  it  cannot  manifest  his  holiness 
and  perfection.  The  view  here  is  that  called  tran- 
scendence in  modern  phrase. 

This  is,  indeed,  a  most  fragmentary  and  imperfect 
summary  of  the  thought  of  the  great  Roman  Chris- 
tian, but  it  indicates  the  principal  features  of  the 
Christian  doctrine  of  God  which  prevailed  in  Latin 
Christianity  for  a  thousand  years.  In  fact,  the  con- 
ceptions of  Augustine  have  not  ceased  to  have  their 
effect  upon  Christian  thought  even  to  the  present  day. 
The  dominant  influence  of  Aristotle's  logic  in  the 
mediaeval  ages,  and  the  consequent  exaltation  of 
formal  reasoning  and  the  growth  of  ecclesiastical 
authority,  tended  to  cast  the  Augustinian  theology 
in  the  hard  and  fast  molds  of  dogmatism.  These  were 
not  broken  until  the  vast  scientific  achievements  of  the 
eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries  gradually  com- 
pelled an  entire  reconstruction  of  Christian  thinking. 

As  Augustine  created  a  theology  the  keynote  of 
which  was  divine  authority,  so  Gregory  the  Great 
created  a  system  of  ecclesiastical  machinery  in  which 
that  theology  could  be  used  to  advantage.  And  from 
the  sixth  century  on  the  task  of  the  Church  was  to 
retain  and  discipline  a  rude  people.  With  the  final 
dissolution  of  the  empire  the  only  bond  of  union  left 
to  bind  the  various  peoples  of  Europe  together  was 
the  Church.  Probably  the  best  method  of  moral  and 
religious  training  was  that  which  prevailed.     Men 


32    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

were  taught  that  the  Church  was  the  sole  mediator 
between  themselves  and  God,  and  only  through  her 
authoritative  teachings  and  rites  was  salvation  pos- 
sible. With  such  a  view  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at 
that  religious  thinking  remained  stationary  and  upon 
the  low  levels  of  mere  external  authority  and  implicit 
trust  in  the  teachings  and  rites  of  the  Church. 

Scholasticism.  But  in  the  eleventh  century  began 
Scholasticism,  that  twilight  which  preceded  the  dawn 
of  modern  philosophy.  The  aim  of  Scholasticism  was 
to  defend  the  fixed  doctrines  of  the  Church  with  rea- 
son. By  reason  is  meant  rather  formal  reasoning. 
Aristotle's  works  on  logic  had  been  extant  in  Latin 
translation  during  the  Middle  Ages,  and  the  authority 
of  Aristotle  in  regard  to  the  form  of  reasoning  was 
quite  as  complete  and  final  as  the  authority  of  the 
Church  with  regard  to  content.  Anselm  (1050-1124) 
is  the  first  thinker  of  prominence.  His  method  is  well 
expressed  in  his  motto,  ''Credo  ut  intelligam"  He 
assumed  the  absolute  truth  of  the  doctrines  of  the 
Church  and  simply  set  forth  to  see  what  could  be  done 
to  buttress  them  with  the  results  of  rational  reflec- 
tion. In  contrast  with  Anselm  came  Abelard,  who 
turned  Anselm's  motto  about  and  made  it  read, 
"Intelligo  ut  credam."  This  was  a  refreshing  protest 
against  religious  faith  founded  simply  upon  tradi- 
tion and  external  authority.  Abelard  insisted  that  a 
vital  faith  must  come  not  from  the  passive  acceptance 
of  truth  on  authority  but  from  the  best  that  the  intel- 
lect can  do  to  comprehend  Divine  truth.  This  seemed 
highly  rationalistic  and  dangerous  to  Bernard  of 
Clairvaux,  the  mystic,  who  succeeded  in  having  Abe- 
lard condemned. 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  PHILOSOPHY       33 

In  the  thirteenth  century  Thomas  Aquinas  (1225- 
1274)  elaborated  a  system  of  theology  and  church 
polity  upon  which  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  relies 
to  this  day.  His  aim  was,  first,  to  mediate  or  rather 
combine  the  rationalism  of  Abelard  and  the  pietism 
of  Bernard ;  and,  second,  to  attempt  to  establish  upon 
a  basis  of  reason  the  claims  of  the  Church  to  absolute 
authority.  We  must  note  only  two  significant  matters 
in  Thomas's  teaching.  First,  he  made  a  very  sharp 
distinction  between  faith  and  reason.  Some  truths 
may  be  learned  through  the  processes  of  reason,  while 
other  truths  are  not  at  all  capable  of  being  known  in 
this  fashion,  but  must  be  accepted  on  faith.  And  "on 
faith"  in  the  system  of  Thomas  Aquinas  meant  upon 
the  authority  of  the  Church.  When  we  find  that  all 
the  distinctively  religious  truths  are  declared  to  be 
those  a  knowledge  of  which  reason  has  no  power 
to  give,  it  can  be  seen  how  thoroughgoing  was  the 
attempt  to  establish  the  authority  of  the  Church  over 
the  minds  of  men.  Second,  Aquinas  taught  that 
while  Augustine  was  right  in  affirming  that  all  that 
takes  place  in  the  world  is  strictly  according  to  the 
divine  will,  nevertheless  God's  will  is  realized  through 
human  wills,  and  therefore  God  has  created  us  morally 
free. 

Dante.  In  the  powerful  message  of  Dante,  the  poet- 
theologian,  Ave  find  foregleams  of  the  new  ages  that 
were  yet  to  come.  His  spirit  was  that  of  the  Renais- 
sance, but  his  thought  forms  were  those  of  the  fixed 
theology  of  Augustine  which  had  served  the  Church 
for  so  many  ages  as  a  basis  of  doctrine.  Dante's  love 
for  political  freedom  and  his  longing  for  society's 
social  rebirth  seem  strangely  incongruous  with  the 


34    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

grim  theology  which  beset  his  thinking.  The  dualism 
of  a  good  God  and  a  wicked  world,  the  sharp  antith- 
esis of  reason  and  faith,  the  full  acknowledgment 
of  the  absolute  authority  of  the  Church  in  matters 
of  belief  are  all  present  in  his  conception  of  Chris- 
tianity. And  yet  we  find  in  Dante  a  greater  emphasis 
upon  human  responsibility  than  in  his  theological 
master,  Aquinas,  and  also  the  poet's  revolt  from  the 
doctrine  of  a  human  nature  ruined  through  Adamic 
corruption. 

Luther.  Martin  Luther's  tremendous  affirmation  of 
the  supremacy  of  the  individual  conscience,  and  his 
preaching  of  salvation  through  the  faith  of  the  be- 
liever alone,  tore  up  the  Scholastic  theology  by  the 
roots.  Through  the  Reformation  came  the  demand 
for  a  thorough  reexamination  and  reconstruction  of 
the  rational  grounds  of  religious  faith.  Luther  was 
not  equal  to  this  great  task,  nor,  indeed,  could  any 
one  man  be.  The  need  was  really  for  a  reconstruc- 
tion of  the  very  foundations  of  knowledge.  If  reli- 
gious faith  is  to  be  taken  as  truth,  that  is,  as  an  essen- 
tially valid  interpretation  of  reality,  then  properly  to 
accredit  faith  would  involve  an  establishing  of  the 
validity  of  knowledge  in  general.  This  great  task 
was  not  the  work  of  one  mind,  but  was  slowly  accom- 
plished through  the  efforts  of  the  master  minds  of 
modern  philosophy. 

Modern  Philosophy  and  Christianity — Descartes.  Des- 
cartes is  by  common  consent  the  father  of  modern 
philosophy,  for  with  him  philosophy  took  a  new  start. 
He  began  by  discarding  the  large  stock  of  old  ideas 
with  which  the  schoolmen  had  done  business.  He 
would  admit  only  those  which  could  be  fully  accred- 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  PHILOSOPHY       35 

ited  by  the  strict  processes  of  reason.  Following  out 
this  rigorous  method,  he  refused  to  accept  as  knowl- 
edge or  belief  anything  which  it  is  at  all  possible  to 
doubt.  The  result  was  that  he  begins  with  the  indis- 
putable fact  of  his  own  conscious  existence,  because 
he  finds  himself  thinking.  He  then  proceeded  to 
build  up  in  thought  what  he  could  justify  by  the 
strictest  processes  of  rational  reflection.  The  signif- 
icant fact  for  our  present  purpose  is  that  Descartes 
endeavored  to  prove  the  existence  of  an  absolute  "sub- 
stance" which  must  correspond,  he  thought,  to  the 
persistent  conception  of  a  universal  existence  which 
we  find  in  our  consciousness.  This  absolute  or  uni- 
versal "substance"  he  called  God.  The  philosophy  of 
Descartes  taught  that  absolute  existence  is  in  God 
and  finite  existence  is  in  mind  and  matter.  These 
two  last  stand  over  against  each  other  in  irreconcil- 
able dualism. 

Spinoza.  It  was  natural  that  Descartes's  disciple 
Spinoza  should  have  proceeded  to  merge  the  two  inde- 
pendent existences — mind  and  matter — in  a  funda- 
mental unity.  This  he  did  by  making  these  two 
finite  "substances"  aspects  of  the  universal  substance 
— God.  This  word  "substance"  stands  both  in  the 
writings  of  Descartes  and  Spinoza  for  existence. 
Spinoza  says:  "By  substance  I  mean  that  which  is 
in  itself,  and  conceived  by  itself;  that  is,  that  whose 
concept  does  not  need  for  its  formation  the  concept 
of  any  other  thing."  3  This  doctrine  is  a  thorough- 
going pantheism  conceived  with  the  emphasis  upon 
the  "matter"  side,  and  hence  materialistic.  Nor  did 
Spinoza  halt  at  its  implications.     He  consistently 


Ethics,  Prop,  xiv,  book  i. 


36    FOUNDATIONS  OP  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

advocated  the  most  complete  mechanical  determinism. 
All  the  acts  of  men  are  necessitated  by  the  Divine 
Existence,  and  mechanical  causation  rules  all  with 
invariable  sequences.  Freedom  is  a  fiction.  Good 
and  evil  are  different  from  the  finite  point  of  view, 
largely  as  they  produce  consequences  desirable  or 
painful  to  us.  This  doctrine  cancels  moral  distinc- 
tions and  destroys  all  ground  of  moral  accountability. 
It  needs  only  to  be  added  that  Spinoza  conceived  mind 
as  a  function  of  bodily  existence,  and  taught  that  at 
physical  death  the  psychical  part  of  man  ceases  to 
exist.  Philosophy  can  hardly  be  conceived  as  more 
utterly  at  variance  with  Christianity  than  in  this 
materialistic  pantheism  of  Spinoza. 

Hegel.  We  turn  now  to  Hegel,  because  he  is  the 
greatest  expounder  of  idealistic  or  spiritual  panthe- 
ism. To  understand  Hegel  is  difficult.  And  it  is 
surely  a  comment  on  the  vague  and  abstract  char- 
acter of  his  speculations  that  his  own  disciples  have 
not  agreed  on  the  point  whether  Hegel's  thought  is 
really  a  foundation  for  Christian  teaching,  or  whether, 
on  the  whole,  the  Hegelian  philosophy  is  antagonistic 
to  the  fundamental  conceptions  of  Christianity.  The 
late  Professor  Green,  of  Oxford,  held  the  first  of 
these  opinions,  while  writers  like  Strauss  (in  Der  Alte 
und  der  Neue  Glaube)  have  used  the  absolute  philos- 
ophy to  subvert  Christian  teaching.  It  would  be 
presumptuous  to  suppose  that  the  gist  of  Hegel's 
thought  as  it  bears  upon  religion  could  be  given  in  a 
paragraph.  We  shall  have  occasion  to  refer  again  to 
the  idea  of  the  Absolute  in  discussing  "Divine  Per- 
sonality" ( Chapter  VI ) .  It  must  suffice  here  to  sug- 
gest that  Hegel's  philosophy  was  a  most  compre- 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  PHILOSOPHY       37 

hensive  attempt  to  find  the  one  ground  of  all  exist- 
ence in  a  basic  principle — "the  Absolute."  This  Abso- 
lute is,  to  use  the  words  of  Hegel's  most  noted  English 
expounder,  "one  spiritual  self-consciousness,  of  which 
all  that  is  real  is  the  activity  and  expression ;  that  we 
are  related  to  this  spiritual  being,  not  merely  as 
parts  of  the  world  which  is  its  expression,  but  as  par- 
takers in  some  inchoate  measure  of  the  self-conscious- 
ness through  which  it  at  once  constitutes  and  dis- 
tinguishes itself  from  the  world;  that  this  participa- 
tion is  a  source  of  morality  and  religion."  4 

Hegel's  philosophy  was  subtle  and  far  removed 
from  all  materialistic  conceptions.  For  him  all  real- 
ity is  rational,  and  is  to  be  known  not  as  some  exist- 
ence outside  of  our  experience  but  is  revealed  and 
known  in  experience.  And  the  Absolute  Reality  is 
God.  Hegel  never  thought  of  attempting  to  prove  the 
existence  of  God  any  more  than  he  would  attempt  to 
prove  his  own  conscious  experience.  This  teaching 
that  reality  is  revealed  in  experience,  and  God  is 
made  known  in  life  itself,  is  profoundly  significant 
truth.  But  Hegel  went  further  than  this  in  the  uni- 
fying of  all  reality.  In  proportion  as  our  experi- 
ence is  real  it  is  a  part  of  the  Absolute.  Thus  the 
Hegelian  synthesis  knows  no  distinction  of  finite 
and  infinite.  Indeed,  in  the  Absolute  the  very  distinc- 
tion of  subject  and  object,  so  basal  to  all  our  finite 
knowledge,  disappears. 

Now,  it  must  be  admitted  that  while  there  are  great 
truths  in  the  Hegelian  philosophy,  and  a  fascination 
in  its  magnificent  comprehensiveness,  its  main  teach- 
ings certainly  do  not  furnish  an  adequate  or  satisfy  - 

*  Thomas  Hill  Green,  Works,  vol.  iii,  p.  146. 


38    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

ing  interpretation  of  our  human  experience.  The 
philosophy  itself  is  an  all-embracing  system  of 
thought.  In  the  clear,  cold  light  of  reason  all  mystery 
and  apparent  irrationality  are  supposed  to  have  been 
dissipated  like  clouds  before  a  noontide  sun.  Its  con- 
ceptions are  highly  abstract.  But  life  presents  us 
great,  dark  facts  of  which  the  Absolute  philosophy 
takes  little  notice  and  certainly  offers  no  interpreta- 
tion or  relief.  These  facts  are  such  as  sin  and  suffer- 
ing— the  apparent  fearful  injustices  of  life,  its  one- 
sidedness.  So  calm  and  serene  is  the  indifference  of 
this  great  logical  idealism  to  the  aspects  of  life  which 
so  often  stare  us  in  the  face  that  it  is  small  wonder 
that  the  philosophy  of  the  Absolute  was  soon  opposed 
by  such  thinkers  as  Schopenhauer,  who  proclaimed 
as  his  metaphysical  creed  not  the  rationality  of  the 
universe,  but  the  absolute  irrationality  of  all  things. 
And  however  little  we  may  agree  with  Schopenhauer's 
philosophy  of  pessimism,  we  must  at  least  admit  that 
it  faces  the  facts  of  experience  in  a  way  Hegel  never 
did. 

Then,  too,  the  implications  of  spiritual  pantheism 
are  but  little  better  than  those  of  Spinoza.  If  all  of 
experience  must  be  thought  of  as  embraced  within  the 
Absolute,  no  place  is  left  for  free  activity  of  the 
human  person  and  we  are  shut  up  to  a  determinism 
which  is  complete.  This  makes  the  Absolute  the 
ground  not  only  of  truth  but  of  error.  God  is  there- 
fore the  source  not  only  of  truth  and  beauty  but  of 
error  and  ugliness.  In  the  Divine  alone  we  find  the 
source  and  ground  not  only  of  religious  faith  but  of 
all  the  fierce  fanaticisms  and  imbecilities  and  sad  and 
dreadful  deeds  with  which  the  pages  of  history  are 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  PHILOSOPHY        39 

darkened.  The  Hegelian  answer  is  to  deny  to  moral 
evil  any  abiding  reality  and  declare  it  to  be  imper- 
fectly developed  good!  No  wonder  that  Professor 
T.  H.  Green  remarks,  speaking  of  the  philosophy  of 
the  Absolute,  "It  still  remains  to  be  presented  in  a 
form  which  will  command  some  general  acceptance 
among  serious  and  scientific  men"  (Works,  iii,  p. 
146). 

But  not  only  are  all  ordinary  distinctions  between 
moral  evil  and  good  invalidated,  and  freedom  (and, 
therefore,  the  grounds  of  moral  responsibility)  can- 
celed by  absolute  idealism,  but  the  conception  of  God 
which  it  offers  is  so  abstract  and  impersonal  that 
religious  worship  finds  no  rational  basis.  Worship 
means  fellowship  of  some  kind,  and  fellowship  implies 
personal  relationships.  Prayer  will  not  long  be 
offered  to  an  immanent  principle.  We  shall  need  to 
refer  to  this  again  in  the  chapter  on  "Divine  Person- 
ality." We  sum  up  the  matter  here  by  pointing  out 
that  the  spiritual  pantheism  of  Hegel  really  furnishes 
as  little  basis  for  Christian  teaching  and  experience 
as  does  the  more  crudely  conceived  pantheism  of 
Spinoza. 

We  have  noted  the  philosophy  of  Hegel  because  it 
is  supposed  to  be  idealism  in  its  fullest  flower,  and  as 
such  might  be  expected  to  furnish  some  philosophic 
basis  for  Christian  teaching.  That  it  does  not  do 
this  has  been  pointed  out.  There  is,  however,  one 
more  great  thinker  whose  philosophical  teaching 
took  a  direction  which  became  very  significant  for 
Christian  thought.    I  refer  to  Lotze. 

Lotze.  Lotze  asked  the  far-reaching  question  con- 
cerning the  meaning  of  the  activity  of  the  Infinite. 


40    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

Can  we  rationally  relate  the  Divine  to  human  well 
being?  The  answer  is  affirmative.  This  added  the 
teleological  element.  Moral  good  is  the  end  or 
aim  of  the  divine  activity.  Lotze  held  that  the  guid- 
ing principles  for  metaphysical  reasoning  must  be 
looked  for  in  ethics.  Moral  values  are  the  impor- 
tant considerations.  And  moral  good  is  not  realized 
mechanically.  The  processes  of  nature  are  the  reg- 
ular manner  in  which  the  Infinite  God  works  to  bring 
about  beneficent  ends.  This  view  lays  the  founda- 
tions for  a  philosophy  which  centers  about  the  con- 
ception of  personality.  The  ends  which  the  Infinite 
activity  realizes  through  nature's  ongoing  processes 
are,  to  speak  in  religious  terms,  the  beneficent  pur- 
poses of  God. 

Eucken,  Ward,  and  Bowne.  Lotze's  influence  has  been 
wide.  Several  eminent  thinkers  have  built  upon  the 
fundamental  idea  of  immanent  purpose  and  have 
elaborated  a  spiritual  idealism  with  the  emphasis 
upon  personality  as  the  basic  reality.  Among  these 
might  be  mentioned  Eucken  in  Germany,  Ward  in 
England,  and  Bowne  in  America.  These  have  de- 
veloped— each  in  his  own  way — philosophy  in  which 
personal  spirit  is  the  fundamental  reality.  All  agree 
in  rejecting  rational  speculation.  The  ground  of  all 
reality  in  Bowne's  philosophy  is  the  personal  God. 
He  defends  the  conception  of  personality  in  the  In- 
finite, as  Lotze  does,  by  showing  that  the  activity  of 
the  nonself,  so  necessary  to  produce  full  self-con- 
sciousness, is  a  characteristic  limitation  of  our  finite 
minds  which  should  not  be  predicated  by  the  Infinite 
Intelligence.  Not  only  does  personality  appear  as 
the  ultimate  manifestation  of  reality,  but  the  prag- 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  PHILOSOPHY        41 

matic  principle  of  practical  values  for  the  moral  life, 
also  emphasized  by  Lotze,  appears  as  a  sufficient 
ground  for  rational  belief,  in  the  absence  of  con- 
clusive logical  demonstration.  It  can  be  seen  that 
philosophy  of  this  type  is  vitally  important  for  a 
Christian  philosophy  of  religion,  since  it  lends  sup- 
port to  the  Christian  conception  of  the  universe. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  PHILOSOPHIC  WORLD-VIEWS 

Philosophy  and  Life.  In  philosophy  we  seek  a  rational 
interpretation  of  the  whole  of  experience.  Expe- 
rience means  the  total  effect  produced  in  us — in  our 
thought,  feeling,  and  will — by  the  world  of  persons 
and  things  by  which  we  are  surrounded.  Philosophy, 
then,  helps  us  to  gain  an  adequate  interpretation  of 
life.  This  search  for  the  rational  principles  underly- 
ing experience  which  is  the  task  of  philosophy  comes 
late  in  the  history  of  human  thought.  As  Aristotle 
first  pointed  out,  reflective  thought  began  only  after 
men  had  reached  that  point  where  they  did  not  have 
to  give  constant  attention  to  the  satisfaction  of  their 
physical  needs.  It  was  therefore  after  the  earlier 
and  more  primitive  stages  of  human  progress  had 
been  passed  that  philosophy  became  possible. 

With  the  opportunity  for  reflective  thought  came 
the  capacity  for  it.  A  considerable  degree  of  mental 
development  had  to  precede  the  appearance  of  philos- 
ophy, and  it  was  only  after  men  had  acquired  mental 
power  through  the  use  of  the  mind  for  the  solution  of 
problems  in  connection  with  the  early  development 
of  the  arts  that  they  became  able  to  sustain  the  more 
complicated  thought  processes  needed  for  philosoph- 
ical inquiry.  The  materials  were  all  well  at  hand 
when  the  reflective  spirit  appeared.     Then  the  prob- 

42 


PHILOSOPHIC  WORLD-VIEWS  43 

lem  began  to  loom  up — how  to  find  beneath  all  the 
manifold  complexities  of  life  those  few  principles 
which  would  enable  thought  to  rest  in  the  assurance 
of  an  underlying  unity  and  harmony. 

Thus  it  appears  that  from  the  first  philosophy  has 
had  to  do  with  life,  and  life  always  precedes  philos- 
ophy. Philosophy  must  lead  to  practical  values  in 
life  or  it  is  not  worth  the  mental  effort  needed  to 
sustain  it.  Of  course  this  does  not  mean  that  any 
interpretations  of  experience  may  be  regarded  as 
valid  because  they  may  be  made  to  serve  practical 
purposes.  No  test  of  values  can  neglect  rationality, 
which  is  itself  one  of  the  greatest  values.  Rational 
harmony  or  consistency  is  an  indispensable  require- 
ment in  all  our  philosophizing.  But  critical  think- 
ing is  not  an  end  in  itself,  but  always  the  means  to  an 
end,  and  this  end  must  be  such  an  interpretation  of 
life  as  will  reveal  something  of  its  dignity  and  moral 
worth. 

Keligion  a  Great  Fact  in  Life.  Applying  this  truth  to 
religion,  we  suggest  that  it  is  not  the  function  of 
philosophy  of  religion  to  start  in  by  attempting  to 
vindicate  the  reality  of  religion.  Religion  is  one  of 
the  great  outstanding  facts  of  life.  Nothing  that 
philosophy  can  urge  will  make  religion  any  more  sure 
as  a  part  of  our  experience.  And  as  life  always  pre- 
cedes philosophy,  so  religion  precedes  philosophy  of 
religion.  It  is  a  great  fact  of  life  which  needs  no 
philosophy  to  vindicate  it.  We  are  religious  long- 
before  we  begin  to  apply  the  methods  of  rational 
reflection  to  the  religious  life.  We  learned  to  walk 
long  before  we  knew  anything  of  the  complicated  play 
of  nerves  and  muscles.    After  we  analyze  the  simple 


44    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

act  of  walking  from  the  viewpoint  of  physiology  and 
anatomy,  we  may  wonder  for  a  moment  how  we  ever 
got  under  way  at  all.  Long  before  we  knew  anything 
of  the  processes  of  thought  we  were  thinking,  and  we 
were  able  to  make  respectable  inductions  before  we 
ever  learned  of  logic.  It  is  even  so  with  rational 
reflection  about  religion.  Philosophy  is  not  needed 
to  justify  religion.  Its  function  is,  rather,  to  furnish 
such  interpretation  of  the  religious  life  as  will  add 
to  our  realization  of  its  necessity  and  everlasting 
worth. 

It  is  not  our  purpose,  then,  in  these  studies  to 
offer  a  speculative  discussion  of  the  development  of 
religion.  We  propose  to  be  guided  continually  by  the 
consideration  of  practical  values  and  needs  in  life. 
Speculative — that  is,  abstractly  logical — discussions 
of  religion  are  not  worth  the  while.  Our  purpose  shall 
be  the  more  practical  one  of  drafting  philosophy  into 
service  as  we  seek  some  adequate  interpretation  of 
the  facts  of  the  religious  life.  And  yet  we  must  not 
use  this  professed  wish  to  present  a  treatment  from 
the  standpoint  of  practical  values  as  an  excuse  for 
slighting  those  broad  philosophical  principles  which 
ought  to  guide  in  any  adequate  thinking  on  the  great 
themes  of  religion.  The  wrarning  that  a  discussion 
is  going  to  be  practical  has  not  infrequently  served 
as  a  poor  excuse  for  superficiality.  There  are  those, 
of  course,  who  urge  that  the  less  religion  has  to  do 
with  philosophy  the  better  for  religion.  It  must  be 
admitted  that  the  introduction  of  metaphysics  into 
the  discussion  of  fundamental  religious  ideas  has 
often  led  off  into  barren  and  arid  speculative  wastes. 
But  it  must  be  remembered  that  it  is  not  the  use  of 


PHILOSOPHIC  WORLD-VIEWS  45 

metaphysics  but  the  use  of  bad  metaphysics  which  has 
produced  this  dreary  result. 

Any  attempt  at  a  serious  treatment  of  religious 
thought  cannot  avoid  a  dependence  upon  philosophy. 
It  is  fallacious  to  separate  in  our  thinking  religious 
experience  from  the  rest  of  experience.  The  same 
rational  principles  underlie  both,  the  same  laws  of 
thought  and  feeling  govern  both.  The  same  knowl- 
edge of  the  mind's  workings  is  needed  to  interpret 
both.  The  idea  that  there  can  be  a  purely  Christian 
philosophy  based  upon  truths  specially  revealed  is  a 
healthy  protest  to  speculative  treatment  of  religion, 
and  the  protest  is  not  out  of  order.  But  the  attempt 
to  establish  a  distinctively  Christian  philosophy  be- 
cause Christianity,  being  a  revealed  religion,  contains 
all  the  truth  which  it  is  necessary  to  know  and  also 
because  Christianity  is  supposed  to  have  its  own  set 
of  fundamental  principles,  is  one  of  the  surest  ways 
of  belittling  Christianity  and  subjecting  it  unjustly 
to  the  suspicion  that  it  cannot  endure  the  same  tests 
of  validity  which  apply  in  other  realms  of  thought. 
There  is  no  more  reason  for  a  special  Christian  philos- 
ophy than  for  a  special  Christian  sociology  and  eco- 
nomics. The  claim  that  Christianity  has  its  own  cate- 
gories or  fundamental  principles  of  thought  and  feel- 
ing is  false,  and  based  upon  a  misunderstanding  of 
certain  Scripture  passages.  The  immanent  laws  of 
the  reason  are  revealed  in  the  world  about  us.  We 
understand  the  universe  because  it  is  the  product  of 
divine  thought  which  is  kindred  to  our  thinking. 
God's  revelation  must  not  be  regarded  as  always  some 
special  or  extraordinary  way  in  which  he  has  com- 
municated his  truth.     These  extraordinary  methods 


4G    FOUNDATIONS  OP  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

of  making  himself  known  are  not  impossible  and  we 
may  well  believe  that  now  and  again  they  have  taken 
place.  But  the  great  body  of  the  Revelation  lies, 
after  all,  in  the  perception  of  the  Divine  thought 
and  purpose  in  the  regular  ongoing  forces  of  life. 
"My  thoughts  are  not  your  thoughts,  neither  are  your 
ways  my  ways,  saith  the  Lord,"  does  not  mean  that 
the  Divine  thought  is  absolutely  different  in  nature 
from  human  thinking.  These  words  express  a  quanti- 
tative rather  than  a  qualitative  difference  between 
the  finite  and  the  infinite. 

Religion  and  the  Philosophic  World- Views.  A  philos- 
ophy involves  a  rational  way  of  looking  at  things  as  a 
whole — a  certain  world-view,  or  Weltanschauung,  as 
the  Germans  say.  The  world  of  things  and  persons 
presents  a  vast  complexity,  but  reflective  thought 
seeks  an  underlying  harmony.  Philosophy  seeks  a 
basal  unity — some  unitary  ground  of  reality.  The 
fundamental  assumption  underlying  both  philosophy 
and  science  is  that  the  universe  is  rational — that  it  is 
capable  of  being  understood  by  us  and  interpreted  in 
accordance  with  the  principles  of  our  thinking. 
Philosophy  always  strives  for  simplicity — to  reduce 
the  plurality  and  complexity  of  things  as  they  ap- 
pear to  us  to  a  few  fundamental  principles.  This 
permits  our  thought  to  rest  in  the  conviction  of  an 
underlying  unity  and  harmony.  The  important  ques- 
tion is,  How  is  this  to  be  done — how  is  experience  to 
be  interpreted  so  as  to  afford  the  largest  measure  of 
rational  insight  into  its  meaning  and  value?  And 
upon  what  fundamental  conceptions  shall  the  inter- 
pretation be  based?  The  answers  to  these  questions 
result  in  the  great  world-views. 


PHILOSOPHIC  WORLD-VIEWS  47 

Now,  a  world-view  of  some  sort  is  not  only  an  affair 
of  philosophy  but  inevitably  underlies  religious  think- 
ing as  well.  This  does  not  mean  that  religious  be- 
lievers consciously  adopt  a  philosophy.  Very  few 
indeed  ever  do  this.  It  simply  means  that  when  the 
implications  of  our  fundamental  religious  beliefs  are 
thought  out  in  a  philosophical  way,  it  is  found  that 
they  imply  a  certain  way  of  looking  at  the  world. 
Indeed,  philosophy  of  some  kind  underlies  all  reli- 
gion, for  some  conception  of  the  Divine  is  the  founda- 
tion of  religion,  and  this  necessarily  means  a  view  of 
ultimate  reality  and  some  thought  of  the  way  this 
ultimate  reality  is  related  to  or  manifests  itself  in 
human  life. 

No  matter,  therefore,  how  much  we  may  try  to  strip 
religious  thought  of  all  philosophic  ideas,  no  matter 
how  vehemently  it  may  be  urged  that  religion  has  no 
dependence  upon  philosophy,  religion  does  and  always 
will  rest  upon  some  kind  of  a  fundamental  world- 
view.  The  all  important  question  for  us  is  not 
whether  we  can  consider  religion  apart  from  philo- 
sophical ideas,  for  we  cannot,  but  what  kind  of  phi- 
losophical ideas  are  to  underlie  our  religious  thought. 
There  are  several  world-views.  Some  of  them  are  of 
such  a  character  that  they  leave  no  place  for  religion. 
It  is  by  no  mans  infrequent  for  Christian  writers  of 
liberal  tendencies  to  show  hospitality  to  philosophic 
doctrines,  the  implications  of  which  are  destructive 
to  the  very  foundations  of  Christianity.  It  is  very 
necessary,  therefore,  before  we  proceed  in  our  studies 
to  attempt  a  consideration  of  these  great  world- views 
sufficient  to  enable  us  to  come  to  some  decision  as  to 
their  validity.     It  will  be  entirely  in  order,  in  the 


48    FOUNDATIONS  OP  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

interests  of  our  conviction  of  truth,  to  make  known 
our  intellectual  hostility  to  certain  world- views;  and 
to  declare  our  allegiance  to  that  way  of  looking  at  the 
universe  which  makes  a  place  for  the  fundamental 
teachings  of  Christian  faith.  If  we  remain  true  to 
the  philosophic  spirit,  our  arguments  will  not  be 
merely  the  traditional  apologetics,  that  is,  formal  de- 
fenses of  Christianity  as  such.  We  shall  need  to 
inquire  how  these  world-views  justify  themselves  from 
the  standpoint  of  truth.  And  truth,  let  us  repeat,  is 
to  be  tested  and  verified,  not  only  by  rational  reflec- 
tion, but  by  a  broad  consideration  of  the  deepest  and 
most  abiding  interests  of  our  personal,  moral  life. 
The  metaphysical  and  practical  arguments  must  go 
hand  in  hand.  We  take  up  first  that  world-view 
called  materialism,  or  materialistic  monism. 

1.  Materialism 

There  are  three  great  questions  which  lie  at  the 
basis  of  all  systematic  reasoning  about  the  universe. 
They  are  ( 1 )  the  question,  How  do  we  gain  knowledge, 
and  how  may  we  have  assurance  that  our  Knowledge 
when  gained  is  valid  for  reality?  (2)  The  question 
concerning  the  nature  of  ultimate  Reality.  (3)  The 
question  as  to  the  fundamental  standard  or  norm  by 
which  human  conduct  should  be  governed.  These  are 
the  great  matters  of  philosophy  and  the  divisions  of 
philosophic  study  which  corresponds  to  them  are 
(1)  Theory  of  Knowledge  (often  called  Episte- 
mology),  (2)  Metaphysics,  and  (3)  Ethics.  It  will  be 
noted  that  questions  one  and  two  overlap,  for  no 
theory  of  knowledge  can  be  completed  without  carry- 
ing the  discussion   over  into  metaphysics.     When, 


PHILOSOPHIC  WORLD-VIEWS  49 

therefore,  we  ask  about  the  world-view  known  as 
materialism,  let  us  formulate  our  inquiry  in  accord- 
ance with  the  above  questions.  In  this  way  we  can 
gain  a  fuller  conception  of  the  meaning  of  material- 
ism as  a  way  of  looking  at  the  universe. 

To  the  question,  then,  WThat  is  the  nature  of  ulti- 
mate reality?  the  materialist  answers,  "It  is  matter." 
But  what  is  matter?  Matter,  we  are  told,  is  the 
eternal  substance,  the  fundamental  ground  of  all  be- 
ing. Its  qualities  are  extension  in  space,  and  it  is 
always  in  motion.  Indeed,  matter  is  the  extended  and 
substantial  medium  through  which  the  energy  of  the 
universe  is  being  constantly  manifested.  From  the 
materialistic  point  of  view  matter,  therefore,  must  be 
thought  of  as  the  ground  of  all  the  processes  of  life, 
not  only  physical  functions  but  states  of  conscious- 
ness as  well ;  all  find  their  explanation  in  matter  and 
motion.  Here  we  have  not  only  the  heart  of  material- 
ism, but  its  crux  as  well.  Materialists  hold  that  feel- 
ing, thought,  emotion,  will — indeed,  our  entire  con- 
scious life — are  merely  a  resultant  or  a  concomitant 
of  those  material  processes  in  nerves  and  brain  which 
are  at  bottom  to  be  explained  in  terms  of  molecular 
motion.  It  will  be  seen  at  once  that  this  really  makes 
psychology  nothing  but  an  aspect  of  physiology.  This 
doctrine,  while  it  has  been  interwoven  with  much  of 
the  progress  in  modern  science,  is  by  no  means  new. 
But,  of  course,  its  modern  form  is  different  from  the 
crude  ancient  teaching.  It  is  the  openly  avowed  or 
tacitly  assumed  basis  of  much  current  scientific  dis- 
cussion. Now,  it  is  really  not  the  business  of  science 
to  expound  speculative  theories  of  the  universe,  but, 
rather,  to  make  us  acquainted  with  things  as  they 


50    FOUNDATIONS  OP  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

exist.  Many  scientific  men  of  the  last  generation  have 
insisted  upon  doing  both.  And  not  a  few  of  them  have 
proclaimed  a  mechanical  conception  of  life  which  lent 
great  aid  to  the  materialistic  view.  This  is  only 
natural.  Reality  as  it  appears  to  ns  in  experience  is 
in  a  dnalistic  form.  There  is  a  material  side  of  life — 
onr  bodies,  and  the  world  of  things  about  us;  and 
there  is  a  spiritual  side  of  life — our  minds  with  their 
feelings,  thoughts,  and  volitions.  These  two  sides  or 
aspects  of  existence  are  in  absolute  and  constant 
parallelism,  and  a  student  who  approaches  reality 
from  the  objective  side  naturally  attempts  to  account 
for  thoughts  in  terms  of  things,  while,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  student  who  approaches  reality  from  the 
subjective  or  mind  side  seeks  to  account  for  things  by 
way  of  thought.  But  while  materialism  seemed  to 
dominate  scientific  thought  for  a  time,  there  is  now  a 
very  decided  reaction  among  scientific  men  toward  an 
essentially  spiritual  view  of  human  life. 

At  first  sight  it  might  seem  to  be  a  formidable 
undertaking  to  combat  such  a  theory.  And,  indeed,  it 
would  be  were  it  not  for  the  fact  that  materialism  con- 
tains within  itself  the  elements  of  its  own  destruction 
as  a  philosophy.  The  truth  is  materialism  cannot 
stand  rational  criticism.  Kant  thoroughly  under- 
mined it,  and  since  his  day  it  has  been  riddled  so  re- 
peatedly that  materialistic  theories  now  have  no 
standing  as  respectable  philosophy.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  such  is  the  status  of  materialism  to-day  that  it 
can  be  the  world- view  only  of  those  whose  philo- 
sophical reasoning  is  confused  and  illogical. 

But  materialism  is  not  a  mere  vagary.  It  is  a  philo- 
sophical world- view,  since  it  professes  to  explain  cer- 


PHILOSOPHIC  WORLD-VIEWS  51 

tain  very  cogent  facts  of  experience.  Among  these 
is  the  fact  that  mental  processes  occur  only  coincident 
with  physical  processes.  There  is  a  close  and  intimate 
parallelism  between  mind  and  body.  On  the  one  hand 
we  have  an  order  of  mental  events,  and  on  the  other 
hand  an  order  of  movements  in  the  nervous  organism. 
The  brain  in  its  size  and  weight  bears  constant  ratio 
to  intelligence.  Physical  fatigue  diminishes  the 
power  of  attention ;  intoxicants  and  narcotics  produce 
direct  physical  effects  which  are  always  accompanied 
also  by  certain  mental  states.  An  injury  to  the  cen- 
tral organ  of  the  nervous  system,  the  brain,  results  in 
corresponding  disaster  to  the  mental  powers.  That 
there  is  some  kind  of  close  connection  or  interaction 
between  body  and  mind  is  indisputable.  All  attempts 
to  prove  that  the  one  order  of  events  is  the  cause  of 
the  other  have  thus  far  failed.  These  are  the  facts. 
Materialism  is  an  attempt  to  explain  these  facts.  And 
materialism,  like  all  other  philosophic  doctrines,  must 
be  judged  from  two  points  of  view:  first,  How  ade- 
quately does  it  explain  the  facts?  and,  second,  What 
are  the  logical  consequences  of  its  underlying  concep- 
tions to  the  great  moral  interests  of  our  life?  In  both 
of  these  respects  we  shall  find  materialism  hopelessly 
inadequate. 

Criticism  of  Materialism.  Materialism  affirms  the 
priority  of  matter  over  mind.  Mind  is  fundamentally 
only  a  higher  aspect  or  manifestation  of  matter.  The 
first  attack  on  materialism  may  well  be  to  show  the 
absolute  untenability  of  this  doctrine.  Material 
things,  far  from  having  the  independent  existence 
which  the  materialist  thinks  they  have,  have  only  a 
relative  existence,  and,  indeed,  cannot  be  affirmed  to 


52    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

exist  at  all  except  as  they  are  the  objects  of  the  knowl- 
edge of  a  conscious  knowing  subject.  The  material- 
istic conception  of  "matter"  becomes  incomprehens- 
ible as  soon  as  we  subject  it  to  criticism.  Let  us  look 
into  this. 

Matter  Incomprehensible  Apart  from  Mind.  Uncritical 
common  sense  has  no  doubt  about  the  existence  of 
matter.  It  is  right  there  before  us,  and  we  have  the 
evidence  of  our  senses  to  prove  that  it  is  there.  Here 
is  an  orange.  That  surely  is  matter.  We  have  a  sen- 
sation of  color.  The  physicist  tells  us  that  ether 
vibrations  have  impinged  upon  the  retina  of  the  eye. 
Molecular  motion  of  some  sort  is  set  up  in  the  nervous 
tissue  of  retina,  optic  nerve,  and  brain.  The  result  is 
a  sensation  of  color,  and  because  we  have  had  exactly 
equivalent  sensations  so  often  before  we  immediately 
interpret  the  sensation  with  the  creation  of  an  idea. 
In  this  way  we  think  of  or  perceive  the  object  as  an 
orange.  In  similar  fashion  we  receive  impressions 
through  the  other  senses.  We  should  notice  that  the 
sensations  of  orange  color,  orange  taste,  orange  smell 
and  softness  are  very  different  indeed  from  the  exist- 
ences in  the  external  world.  Those  existences  are 
motion  of  various  sorts.  The  ether  vibrations  are  in- 
conceivably rapid  and  upon  their  rapidity  depends 
the  interpretation  the  mind  will  make,  whether  orange 
color  or  blue  or  red.  It  is  evident  that  there  could  be 
no  color  or  taste  or  smell  or  hardness  or  form  in  the 
absence  of  a  nervous  system  to  receive  the  forms  of 
motion  and  transform  them  into  other  forms  of 
motion.  Nor  could  color,  taste,  smell,  or  hardness  have 
any  existence  in  the  absence  of  a  mind  to  interpret 
these  impressions  coming  through  the  nervous  system 


PHILOSOPHIC  WORLD-VIEWS  53 

and  to  create  the  corresponding  ideas.  Let  us  now 
think  of  the  orange  standing  before  us.  And  let  us 
imagine  that  one  by  one  the  sense  qualities  disappear. 
There  is  now  no  sensation  of  color,  we  have  no  sensa- 
tion of  touch,  nor  is  there  any  odor  nor  taste,  sound, 
or  perception  of  heat.  Shall  we  say  that  the  motion 
which  caused  the  stimulation  of  our  nerves  has 
ceased?  At  any  rate,  there  arise  no  sensations  in  the 
mind.  Now,  in  the  absence  of  sensations  and,  there- 
fore, ideas,  is  there  anything  there?  Is  a  "thing"  the 
name  we  give  to  a  group  of  perceived  sense-qualities? 
Does  "matter"  remain  even  when  no  sensations  arise 
and  no  ideas  are  born?  If  we  say  matter  does  remain 
as  a  kind  of  "core  of  reality"  or  "substratum  of  being" 
back  of  sense  qualities,  how  can  we  know  anything  at 
all  about  it?  Is  not  the  materialist  in  affirming  the 
independent  existence  of  matter  calling  upon  us  to 
believe  something  of  which  we  can  know  nothing? 
The  truth  is  that  the  existence  of  material  things 
apart  from  the  sensations  and  ideas  through  which 
we  know  them  is  groundless.  Materialism,  therefore, 
in  affirming  the  independent  existence  of  matter 
builds  upon  a  conception  which  proves  on  critical 
examination  to  be  incomprehensible. 

But  now  a  scientist  objects.  He  says  that  the  above 
argument  disposes  of  matter  only  when  regarded  as 
a  kind  of  stuff.  But  this  is  the  older  atomistic  mate- 
rialism in  which  modern  science  does  not  now  believe. 
Matter,  he  tells  us,  is  the  permanent  and  sensible 
manifestation  of  motion.  The  kinetic  doctrine  of 
matter  does  not  teach  that  the  atoms  are  little  lumps 
of  material  substance,  but  that  they  are  infinitesimal 
centers  of  energy.     We  answer  that,  if  the  modern 


54    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

scientist  teaches  that  matter  is  the  ultimate  reality, 
but  that  it  is  to  be  understood  not  as  body  or  substance 
but  as  activity,  he  is  teaching  very  good  doctrine.  If 
he  will  consent  to  drop  the  word  "matter"  altogether 
and  speak  of  basal  energy  or  activity,  we  invite  him  in 
to  go  on  with  us  in  the  criticism  of  materialism.  And 
we  do  so  with  the  hope  that  he  may  soon  learn  to 
think  of  the  fundamental  activity  as  intelligent.  But 
we  remind  him  that  this  conception  of  matter  as  activ- 
ity contains  implications  which  undermine  and  de- 
stroy materialism  as  a  world-view.  It  will  not  be 
difficult  to  show  that  it  is  far  more  rational  to  regard 
this  activity  of  which  "matter"  is  the  eternal  mani- 
festation as  conscious  activity.  For  shall  we  say  that 
our  own  conscious  activity  with  all  our  thoughts,  feel- 
ings, and  volitions  rests  upon  an  unconscious  activity 
as  its  ground?  If  we  do,  we  leave  consciousness  unac- 
counted for,  as  we  shall  see,  and  materialism,  even  in 
its  most  modern  form,  breaks  down  as  a  philosophy. 
But  if  we  think  of  our  own  conscious  life  as  grounded 
in  a  fundamental  intelligent  activity,  then  there  is 
indeed  a  way  of  accounting  for  our  own  conscious 
life ;  but  in  doing  so  we  leave  materialism  behind  and 
adopt  a  world- view  which  is  essentially  idealistic  and 
spiritual.  We  conclude,  then,  that  in  building  upon 
the  conception  of  matter  as  an  ultimate  reality  inde- 
pendent of  mind,  materialism  has  built  upon  a 
foundation  which  crumbles  as  soon  as  critical  tests 
are  applied. 

This  argument  derived  from  our  own  mental  proc- 
esses in  knowing,  though  perfectly  sound,  is  so  foreign 
to  the  ways  of  uncritical  common  sense  that  persons 
who  are  not  acquainted  with  philosophy  generally 


PHILOSOPHIC  WORLD  VIEWS  55 

are  puzzled  by  it,  not  knowing  how  to  answer  and 
yet  not  thoroughly  convinced.  Material  things  do 
indeed  seem  to  exist  in  very  hard-and-fast  reality  as 
they  stand  before  us.  But  let  us  not  forget  that  stand- 
ing before  us  is  a  very  important  part  of  the  only  real- 
ity we  know  anything  about.  Of  course  this  does  not 
mean  that  our  minds  are  the  ground  of  the  reality  of 
things,  but  only  that  our  minds  are  the  ground  of  all 
the  reality  of  things  we  can  know.  Things  may  no 
doubt  exist  independent  of  our  finite  minds.  But 
whether  the  material  universe  has  any  existence  apart 
from  an  Infinite  Mind  is  a  greater  question.  For  our 
present  purpose  we  must  urge  that  apart  from  mind 
that  perceives  and  knows  it  is  impossible  for  us  to 
affirm  a  reality  which  means  anything  at  all  for  our 
rational  thought. 

Materialism  and  the  Origin  of  Life.  But  let  us  turn 
now  to  another  weakness  of  materialism  as  a  philos- 
ophy. It  finds  no  way  to  account  for  or  to  explain 
the  beginning  of  life.  Let  us  consider  this  first  from 
the  standpoint  of  the  origin  of  organic  life — leaving 
for  the  present  the  conscious  aspects  of  life.  We 
repeat  that  it  is  not  the  task  of  science  to  formulate 
a  theory  of  the  universe.  The  scientist  is  therefore 
under  no  obligation  to  offer  any  explanation  of  the 
origin  of  life.  Biology  very  properly  starts  with  the 
facts  of  experience — with  life  in  its  most  primitive 
forms.  With  this  as  a  beginning  the  biologist  traces 
the  manifestation  of  life  through  all  the  myriad  organ- 
isms from  the  lowest  protozoan  to  the  human  species. 
But  as  soon  as  the  scientist  makes  professions  as  a 
materialist  or,  as  he  prefers  to  be  called,  a  "nionist," 
he  has  entered  the  lists  as  a  philosopher.     It  now 


56    FOUNDATIONS  OP  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

becomes  necessary  that  his  doctrine  shall  stand  the 
test  of  all  good  philosophy,  namely,  that  it  furnish  an 
interpretation  of  the  facts  of  experience  in  their 
broader  relation  to  the  unity  and  harmony  of  truth. 
And  how  does  it  fare  with  materialism  when  this  test 
is  applied?  Surely  a  philosophic  doctrine  must  have 
something  worth  saying  in  regard  to  so  great  a  matter 
as  the  origin  and  ground  of  life. 

With  all  the  hopes  and  confident  predictions  which 
have  been  made  that  life  will  be  produced  from  the 
inorganic  and  the  lifeless,  no  authenticated  instance 
has  yet  taken  place.  Now  the  scientist  can  well  afford 
to  leave  the  matter  of  the  spontaneous  generation  of 
life  an  open  question.  Indeed,  it  is  unscientific  to 
dogmatize  here.  But  the  advocate  of  materialistic 
monism  cannot  afford  to  do  this.  His  philosophy 
demands  that  some  explanation  of  the  origin  of  life 
should  be  forthcoming  and  some  ultimate  ground 
of  life  be  affirmed.  The  time-honored  formula  of 
atomistic  materialism,  that  life  must  have  finally  orig- 
inated from  the  fortuitous  concurrence  of  such  com- 
binations of  atoms  as  were  able  to  propagate  them- 
selves, sounds  rather  antiquated.  But  for  substance 
of  doctrine  the  monist  has  nothing  better  to  offer.  He 
says  something  like  this:  "Life  may  be  conceived  as 
generated  from  a  special  union  of  inorganic  corpus- 
cles, which  union  may  take  place  under  favorable 
environment."  *  Perhaps  this  sort  of  spontaneous 
generation  "may  be  conceived"  and  such  union  "may 
take  place."  Certain  it  is,  however,  that  no  such 
occurrence  ever  has  happened  in  the  range  of  human 
experience.     Many  years  ago  Dr.  Bastian  was  sure 

1  Karl  Pearson,  Grammar  of  Science,  p.  348. 


PHILOSOPHIC  WORLD  VIEWS  57 

that  biogenesis  was  an  assured  fact.  But  later  experi- 
menters who  took  more  care  in  sterilizing  culture- 
media  showed  that  life  had  not  been  generated  from 
non-life.  Years  later  Mr.  Burke  produced  his  "radi- 
obes,"  which  look  and  act  like  bacteria.  But  though 
widely  reported  to  have  done  so,  he  did  not  claim  that 
he  had  produced  spontaneous  generation  of  life.2 
And  we  search  in  vain  for  any  light  from  materialistic 
monism  upon  the  problem  of  life's  origins.  Du  Bois- 
Reymond,  in  his  famous  "seven  world-enigmas"  ad- 
dress, delivered  in  Berlin  in  1880,  placed  the  origin 
of  life  as  an  unsolved  problem.  And  though  confess- 
ing its  immense  difficulty,  he  expressed  the  belief  that 
its  solution  would  be  accomplished.  But  thus  far 
his  fond  hopes  have  not  been  realized.  Haeckel,  in  his 
Riddle  of  the  Universe,  has  a  very  short  section 
entitled  "Monistic  Biogeny,"  in  which  he  praises 
Lamarck  and  Darwin  for  their  epoch-making  work 
in  transforming  modern  biology  to  its  very  founda- 
tions, but  he  says  not  a  word  upon  the  origin  of  life. 
The  reason  is  the  very  good  one  that  there  is  nothing 
to  say  from  the  point  of  view  of  materialistic  monism. 
Nearly  a  half  century  ago  Professor  Tyndall  thought 
that  matter  "contained  the  promise  and  potency  of  all 
life."  But  thus  far  the  promise  has  not  been  fulfilled 
and  the  potency  appears  to  be  as  far  from  actuality  as 
ever.  It  would  not  be  at  all  serious  for  the  Christian 
view  of  the  world  if  the  appearance  of  life  from  non- 
living antecedents  should  some  day  be  demonstrated. 
The  mere  fact  of  being  able  to  establish  that  sequence 
would  by  no  means  prove  that  we  had  found  in  matter 
a  rational  ground  sufficient  to  account  for  all  organic 

*  J.  Butler  Burke,  The  Origin  of  Life,  p.  99f. 


58    FOUNDATIONS  OP  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

life.  It  would  simply  mean  that  we  had  discovered 
one  more  chapter  in  the  story  of  infinite  intelligence 
and  its  unfolding  purposes  as  they  are  made  manifest 
in  the  processes  of  nature.  But  the  inability  to  urge 
anything  better  as  the  ground  of  all  life  than  matter, 
even  though  it  be  understood  as  the  mechanical  mani- 
festation of  energy,  is  a  cardinal  weakness  of  material- 
ism and  seriously  discredits  it  as  a  world-view. 

Materialism  and  the  Origin  of  Consciousness.  Material- 
ism must  consistently  deny  to  the  soul  an  independent 
existence.  Our  conscious  life,  with  its  thought  and 
feeling,  is  made  to  depend  upon  the  movements  of 
matter.  Some  sort  of  molecular  motion  in  the  sub- 
stance of  the  nerves  and  brain  is  taken  to  be  the 
ground  of  thought.  Materialism  starts  with  the  fact 
of  the  parallelism  between  the  mind  and  the  body. 
There  is  an  order  of  mental  events — thoughts,  feel- 
ings, volitions.  There  is  also  an  order  of  physical 
movement.  Impressions  received  through  the  senses 
induce  molecular  motion  in  the  structure  of  the  nerves 
and  brain.  Coincident  with  these  there  is  an  order  of 
mental  events,  sensations,  ideas,  feelings.  It  is  the 
task  of  materialism  to  justify  its  assumption  and 
show  how  the  mental  events  are  produced  by  the 
motion  of  matter.  The  tenet  of  materialism,  there- 
fore, is  that  our  conscious  states  are  functions  or 
results  of  our  nervous  processes. 

It  is  certain  that  the  task  of  showing  causal  con- 
nection between  events  and  the  order  of  psychical 
movement  has  never  been  accomplished.  Du  Bois- 
Reymond  says  it  never  will  be.3  Other  materialistic 
monists  are  more  hopeful.     In  considering  this  ques- 


1  In  his  famous  address,  "Die  Grenzen  des  Naturekennens." 


PHILOSOPHIC  WORLD  VIEWS  59 

tion  the  first  thing  we  must  do  is  to  file  a  serious  ob- 
jection to  the  habit  some  materialists  have  of  assum- 
ing an  identity  between  these  two  orders  of  events. 
Often  the  assertion  has  been  made  that  thought  in  its 
ultimate  nature  is  a  form  of  molecular  motion.4  This 
amounts  to  saying  that  mind  is  matter  in  motion.  We 
are  simply  done  with  all  valid  reasoning  if  a  great 
crucial  question  can  be  begged  in  this  offhand  way. 
All  the  logical  principles  of  our  thought  as  we  try 
to  build  up  knowledge  are  neglected  and  outraged  if 
a  reasoner  is  to  be  permitted  thus  to  disregard  the  law 
of  identity  and  difference,  and  to  affirm  with  no  evi- 
dence that  mind  is  at  bottom  matter.  As  well  might 
we  allow  the  assertion  that  apes  are  at  bottom  men. 
Only  the  crudest  materialistic  thinking  continues  to 
reiterate  this  groundless  assumption.  We  must  also 
object  to  the  similar  fallacy  which  consists  in  the 
mingling  of  the  two  concepts  of  spirit  and  matter  so 
that  any  real  distinction  between  them  is  obliterated. 
Clifford  was  a  pioneer  offender  in  this  regard  with  his 
"mind  stuff"  whimsy,  and  Bain  and  others  have  fol- 
lowed him.  Indeed,  the  "higher  materialism,"  so 
called,  lives  and  does  business  simply  because  of  this 
illegitimate  disregarding  of  the  law  of  identity.  Let 
us  say  at  once  if  we  are  to  think  of  matter  as  possess- 
ing consciousness  and  certain  powers  which  we  have 
always  been  in  the  habit  of  attributing  to  mind,  let  us 
say  mind,  and  cease  to  say  matter,  not  attempting  to 
say  both  at  once.  "Two-faced  substance,"  "conscious 
substance,"  and  all  such  question-begging  phrases  are 
purely  verbal  and  are  entitled  to  no  respect.     Such 

*  Buchner,  in  Kraft  und  Stoff — English  translation,  Matter  and  Motion — repeatedly 
makes  this  crude  and  uncritical  assumption,  and  has  been  followed  in  it  by  some  of 
the  popular  materialistic  writers  among  the  Socialists. 


60    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

cross-breeding  of  concepts  is  illogical  to  the  last  de- 
gree. If  it  produces  any  result  at  all,  the  resulting 
concept  is  a  monstrosity,  like  the  centaur  or  mer- 
maid— a  fanciful  notion  arising  from  a  mere  mechan- 
ical juxtaposition  of  two  distinct  ideas  and  to  which 
there  is  absolutely  nothing  in  experience  to  corre- 
spond. 

The  common  assumption  of  materialism  that  mental 
events  are  effects  of  which  molecular  movement  in 
nerve  and  brain  is  the  cause,  is  incapable  of  proof. 
And  the  negative  of  this  is  of  course  equally  incapable 
of  being  demonstrated.  When  one  movement  A  is 
affirmed  as  the  cause  of  another  movement  B,  we  must 
conclude  either  that  motion  is  actually  imparted  from 
A  to  B  (in  which  case  the  motion  of  A  is  diminished 
by  the  amount  of  that  imparted  to  B)  or  else  that 
there  is  interaction  of  some  sort  between  A  and  B, 
whereby  B  moves  as  the  effect  of  A.  Now,  the  well- 
established  principle  of  the  conservation  of  energy 
would  forbid  the  thought  of  any  transferring  of  mo- 
tion from  the  physical  order  to  the  psychical.  For  in 
that  event  we  would  have  physical  energy  being  trans- 
formed into  thought.  But  thought  has  no  physical 
existence ;  therefore  such  transferring  of  energy  from 
the  physical  to  the  mental  would  mean,  from  the 
materialistic  point  of  view,  the  destruction  of  energy, 
which,  of  course,  cannot  be  thought  of.  We  are  shut 
up,  then,  to  the  affirmation  of  some  form  of  interac- 
tion between  the  order  of  mental  activity  and  the 
order  of  physical  movement. 

To  follow  the  argument  here  with  anything  like 
completeness  would  carry  us  too  far  into  metaphysics 
for  our  present  purpose.    We  must  be  content  to  indi- 


PHILOSOPHIC  WORLD-VIEWS  61 

cate  the  direction  in  which  the  truth  lies.  It  would 
not  be  difficult  to  show  that  the  problem  of  interac- 
tion on  the  plane  of  the  material  and  mechanical  is 
hopelessly  insoluble.  The  excited  nerve  has  never  yet 
been  shown  to  be  the  cause  of  thought,  nor  will  it  ever 
be.  Du  Bois-Reymond  and  others  who  declare  the 
problem  insoluble  only  confess  what  the  student  of 
metaphysics  knows  is  the  fact.  Indeed,  this  problem 
has  been  entirely  given  up  by  all  thinkers  who  under- 
stand themselves.  In  philosophy  the  doctrine  of 
occasionalism  sprang  from  the  extreme  difficulty  of 
comprehending  interaction  between  mind  and  body. 
The  modern  version  of  this  metaphysical  doctrine  is 
the  so-called  theory  of  psycho-physical  parallelism. 
This  view  gives  up  all  attempt  to  establish  causal 
relations  between  the  soul  and  the  body.  The  excita- 
tion of  nerve  and  brain,  presumably  through  molec- 
ular motion,  is  not  to  be  affirmed  as  the  cause  of 
thought,  but  upon  excitation  of  the  physical  organism 
thought  arises.  Volition  does  not  actually  cause 
physical  movements,  but  upon  the  arising  of  the  voli- 
tion as  a  mental  event  certain  corresponding  physical 
movements  take  place.  This  is  the  beginning  of  the 
end  of  materialism. 

Let  us  bear  in  mind  that  materialism  cannot  allow 
the  conversion  of  motion  into  consciousness,  for  this 
would  mean  the  destruction  of  energy  which  the  doc- 
trine of  its  conservation  cannot  permit.  There  must, 
therefore,  be  no  break  in  the  chain  of  physical  se- 
quence so  far  as  the  transformations  of  energy  are 
concerned.  What,  now,  is  the  ground  of  the  constant 
and  wonderful  parallelism  between  the  order  of 
mental  events  and  the  corresponding  order  of  phys- 


62    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

ical  movement?  Does  the  ultimate  nature  or  power 
of  matter  in  motion  explain?  If  it  does,  thought  can- 
not be  excluded  from  a  place  in  the  order  of  physical 
movement.5  In  metaphysics  the  doctrine  of  occasion- 
alism prepared  the  way  for  Leibnitz's  doctrine  of  a 
preestablished  harmony,  and  hence  on  to  the  affirma- 
tion of  mind  as  the  underlying  and  harmonizing  unit. 
And  this,  of  course,  led  on  to  idealism.  In  the  funda- 
mental thinking  necessary  to  justify  or  invalidate 
materialism  as  a  world-view  the  doctrine  of  psycho- 
physical parallelism  is  found  to  contain  the  same 
implications.  In  truth,  it  is  the  modern  statement  of 
the  older  metaphysical  doctrine.  Now,  interaction 
between  independent  existences  is  impossible,  but  the 
fact  of  parallelism  demands  some  ground  of  connec- 
tion. All  efforts  to  find  this  in  causation  from  one  to 
the  other  fail.  We  are  compelled,  therefore,  either 
to  abandon  the  problem  entirely  after  the  fashion  of 
positivism  or  to  affirm  a  fundamental  mind  in  the 
unity  of  whose  intelligence  the  parallelism  finds 
explanation,  as  a  part  of  a  great  unitary  system  of 
things. 

Materialism  and  Moral  Values.  We  now  consider 
materialism  with  reference  to  the  third  great  ques- 
tion of  philosophy,  namely,  that  of  ethical  values. 
The  doctrine  which  affirms  the  physical  and  material 
as  the  ground  of  the  mental  discloses  its  poverty  and 
nakedness  most  plainly  when  we  approach  the  ques- 
tion of  the  great  moral  interests  of  life.  Matter  in 
motion  as  the  ground  of  existence  means  a  mechan- 
ical determination  of  all  activity.     And,  therefore, 


*  M.  Bergson  presses  a  similar  application  of  the  conservation  of  energy  in  hi*  attack 
on  determinism,  Time  and  Free  Will,  p.  144f. 


PHILOSOPHIC  WORLD-VIEWS  63 

the  consistent  materialistic  monist  either  openly 
scouts  freedom  as  an  outgrown  theological  supersti- 
tion after  the  manner  of  Haeckel,  or,  as  is  generally 
the  case,  denies  it  indirectly  and  diplomatically  under 
plausible  phraseology.  He  does  it  in  this  fashion 
because  an  open  and  blunt  denial  of  freedom  is 
too  great  an  affront  to  the  moral  consciousness  of 
men. 

A  thoroughgoing  determinism  cancels  ethics.  Any 
doctrine  which  by  direct  teaching  or  implication 
would  have  us  believe  that  our  mental  life  is  the  re- 
sultant of  mechanical  movements  in  nerves  and  brain, 
leaves  no  place  whatever  for  human  responsibility. 
Why  should  men  be  held  to  any  account  for  their 
judgments  or  their  beliefs  if  all  depends  upon  phys- 
ical activity,  and  physical  activity  is  a  closed  mechan- 
ical system?  How  can  men  be  held  as  guilty  or  inno- 
cent, virtuous  or  depraved,  if  the  motions  which  con- 
trol conduct  are  but  the  consequences  of  antecedents 
fixed  and  determined  according  to  unvarying  law? 
We  shall  need  to  revert  to  this  important  point  in  dis- 
cussing the  meaning  of  personality  later  on.  A  brief 
reference  must  therefore  suffice  here. 

The  moral  law  is  not  something  which  is  imposed 
upon  men  from  outside.  It  is,  rather,  written  deeply 
into  the  very  texture  of  human  life  and  experience. 
It  is  an  evolution  in  which  human  conduct  itself  has 
played  a  most  important  part.  Through  the  age-long 
experience  of  the  race  men  have  gradually  learned  to 
control  and  shape  their  conduct  so  as  to  diminish  the 
discomfort,  pain  and  other  evils,  and  promote  hap- 
piness. But  this  process  has  been  no  mere  play 
of  forces  in  action  and  reaction.     Without  the  im- 


64    FOUNDATIONS  OP  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

perial  self  slowly  emerging  and  gradually  winning 
a  fuller  measure  of  the  power  of  self-initiative  and 
control,  there  is  no  morality  to  talk  about.  Psy- 
chology remains  but  physiology — ethics  a  phase  of 
mechanics. 

Materialism  and  Religion.  A  word  must  be  added  in 
conclusion  concerniug  materialism  (or  materialistic 
monism)  and  religion.  It  has  become  very  evident 
that  no  place  whatever  is  left  for  religion.  Belief  in 
God  as  a  Supreme  Intelligence  and  Creator  is 
regarded  as  more  or  less  refined  and  beneficent  super- 
stition. Matter  defined  as  that  through  which  the 
eternal  energy  of  the  universe  manifests  itself,  is 
itself  eternal.  The  only  soul  man  has  is  his  brain.  At 
death  man  lies  down  with  his  more  lowly  brothers, 
the  beasts.  Materialism  has  nothing  to  offer  but  the 
gospel  of  life's  insignificance.  "As  a  loaf  of  bread  is 
covered  with  a  coating  of  mildew — a  world  of  living 
plants — so  too  the  earth  is  covered  with  a  world  of 
living  organisms;  and  among  them  man  appears  as 
a  variation  of  these  forms.  After  a  brief  bloom  this 
world  sinks  back  again  into  the  nothingness  from 
which  it  came.  One  thing  alone  remains — eternal 
matter  and  the  laws  of  its  motion.  Between  the 
infinite  past  when  there  was  no  life,  and  the  infinite 
future  in  which  there  will  be  no  life,  the  moment  of 
the  present  and  of  life  emerges — a  moment  only, 
though  we  measure  it  by  a  million  years.  And  at  this 
moment  a  small  portion  of  infinite  matter  reveals  that 
wonderful  phenomenon  of  phosphorescence,  as  it 
were,  which  we  call  self-consciousness  or  mental  life 
— a  brief  interlude  which,  however  great  and  impor- 
tant it  may  seem  to  us,  is  none  the  less  an  altogether 


PHILOSOPHIC  WORLD-VIEWS  65 

insignificant  incident  in  the  history  of  the  immense 
universe."  6 

And  yet  Strauss,  in  his  "Der  Alte  und  Neue 
Glaube,"  expounds  the  religion  of  materialism  at  con- 
siderable length !  And  Haeckel,  in  his  Kiddle  of  the 
Universe,  grows  quite  eloquent  over  "Monistic  Reli- 
gion" and  devotes  a  whole  chapter  to  it.  He  would 
even  allow  those  of  his  scientific  brethren  who  may 
not  be  able  to  shake  off  their  hankering  for  places  of 
worship  to  have  monistic  churches!  The  object  of 
worship  in  this  religion  is  Nature — the  impersonal 
abstract  conception  of  the  totality  of  all  things. 
Some,  like  the  older  Positivists,  propose  Plumanity  as 
an  object  of  worship.  And  by  Humanity  is  meant  an 
abstract  and  idealized  conception  of  the  human  race. 

As  a  world-view  we  totally  reject  materialism  and 
its  corollary,  determinism.  It  fails  utterly  to  inter- 
pret the  great  facts  of  human  experience  and  upon 
this  basis  every  philosophical  doctrine  must  be  judged. 
The  fact  that  it  leaves  no  place  for  a  religion  resting 
upon  belief  in  superhuman  power  is  a  further  evidence 
of  its  weakness  as  a  world-view.  The  faith  of  man- 
kind in  this  power — a  faith  which  has  persisted  in  the 
human  breast  in  one  form  or  another  for  countless 
ages — may  not  be  ignored  as  a  worthless  superstition. 
And  any  philosophy  which  does  ignore  it  is  thereby 
discounted  and  discredited  as  hopelessly  inadequate. 

2.  Agnosticism 

Meaning  of  Agnosticism.  Agnosticism  can  hardly  be 
called  a  world-view.     In  fact,  a  world-view  in  the 


8  The  cosmologioal  view  of  materialism  is  thus  summed  up  by  Paulsen  in  his  mas- 
terly Introduction  to  Philosophy,  p.  C6. 


66    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

sense  of  a  philosophical  conception  of  the  universe  is 
the  very  thing  the  agnostic  refuses  to  hold  to.  The 
word  "agnostic,"  like  the  word  "socialist/'  is  difficult 
to  define  with  any  degree  of  exactness.  The  meaning- 
is  best  gained  from  the  beliefs  or,  rather,  the  lack  of 
beliefs  of  well-known  thinkers  who  have  expounded 
agnosticism  as  their  position.  Most  prominent 
among  these  are  Professor  Huxley  and  Herbert 
Spencer.  Huxley  was  the  first  to  use  the  words 
agnostic  and  agnosticism.  The  older  words  were 
skepticism  and  positivism.  Skepticism  means  the 
general  view  that  our  rational  thinking  cannot  grasp 
reality,  and  hence  that  all  our  knowledge  is  relative 
to  us.  It  includes,  of  course,  the  view  that  we  can 
know  nothing  of  God.  Positivism  rests  upon  this 
general  skeptical  view,  but  is,  properly  speaking,  a 
scientific  position.  The  positivist  protests  against  the 
importation  into  science  of  any  metaphysical  concep- 
tions such  as  matter,  cause,  force.  Positivism  de- 
mands that  science  work  simply  with  what  is  gained 
through  sense  experience.  This  alone  is  knowledge; 
all  else  is  idle  speculation  with  which  the  well- 
instructed  scientist  should  have  nothing  to  do. 
Agnosticism  has  come  to  be  applied  generally  to  the 
denial  that  we  can  have  any  knowledge  of  the  Infinite 
Being.  It  will  be  seen  at  once  that  such  a  denial  puts 
agnosticism  over  against  religion  in  sharp  antago- 
nism. For  the  fundamental  teaching  of  the  agnostic, 
if  it  were  true,  would  shatter  the  foundations  of  reli- 
gion. 

Kant's  Agnosticism.  Skepticism  is,  of  course,  not 
modern.  It  was  a  recognized  standpoint  among  the 
thinkers  of  ancient  Greece.    Kant  and  Hume  were  the 


PHILOSOPHIC  WORLD-VIEWS  67 

first  great  expounders  of  the  limitations  of  rational 
reflection.  Hume  set  forth  the  sensational  theory  of 
knowledge  which  was  afterward  so  thoroughly  dis- 
credited. Kant  broke  new  ground,  and  in  his  analysis 
of  the  knowing  process  showed  that  the  mind  reacting 
over  against  the  stimulus  of  sense  experience  builds 
up  knowledge  by  its  own  activity  in  accordance  with 
the  categories — those  immanent  principles  which  lie 
in  the  very  nature  of  reason  itself.  Kant's  outcome 
showed  the  incompetence  of  reason  alone  to  give  us 
any  knowledge  of  matters  lying  beyond  the  bound- 
aries of  experience.  But  Kant  did  not  stop  with  this. 
He  affirmed  that  there  are  some  certainties  for  the 
soul  which  we  do  not  gain  through  metaphysical  rea- 
soning. They  are  absolute  postulates,  and  we  accept 
them  because  of  the  practical  needs  and  demands  of 
the  moral  life.  These  great  postulates  are  God,  free- 
dom, and  immortality.  Metaphysical  reasoning  has 
never  been  the  foundation  of  our  assurance  of  these 
beliefs,  and  therefore  nothing  has  been  lost  when  we 
find  that  such  reasoning  has  no  power  to  yield  us 
knowledge  of  them. 

Spencer's  Agnosticism.  But  Spencer's  agnosticism, 
though  far  more  pretentious,  is  really  much  cruder 
than  Kant's.  Spencer  professed  to  harmonize  science 
and  religion  at  just  the  time  when  they  seemed  to  be 
in  sharpest  conflict.  But  his  reconciliation  was  a 
very  doubtful  boon  to  religion.  He  warned  the  theo- 
logians that  "the  basis  of  the  reconciliation  must  be 
this  deepest,  widest,  and  most  certain  of  all  facts — 
that  the  Power  which  the  universe  manifests  is  in- 
scrutable." God,  therefore,  is  not  to  be  thought  of 
except  as  a  great  Mystery — the  Unknowable.     Any- 


68    FOUNDATIONS  OP  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

thing  more  than  this,  Mr.  Spencer  tells  us,  swamps 
thought  in  a  lot  of  contradictions.  But,  according 
to  Spencer,  we  are  in  the  same  plight  in  respect  to 
other  fundamental  ideas — matter,  motion,  force,  con- 
sciousness, space,  time.  These,  he  assures  us,  are  just 
as  hopelessly  contradictory  as  Infinite,  Absolute,  and 
First  Cause.  It  certainly  looks  as  bad  for  physics  and 
psychology  as  for  theology.  And  here  is  a  most  inter- 
esting question  which  finds  no  adequate  answer  in 
Mr.  Spencer's  writings.  If  we  can  have  no  knowledge 
in  religion  because  the  fundamental  notions  of  reli- 
gion are  inscrutable,  how  does  it  come  that  we  can 
have  knowledge  in  physics  and  psychology  even 
though  the  fundamental  notions  matter,  force,  space, 
time,  and  consciousness,  are  inscrutable?  The  reply 
would  be,  of  course,  that  those  sciences  are  purely 
empirical,  using  knowledge  which  comes  to  us  through 
sense-experience,  but  that  God,  not  being  an  object 
of  our  sense-experience,  cannot  be  regarded  as  an 
object  of  our  knowledge.  The  superficiality  of  this 
lies  in  the  assumption  that  knowledge  can  come  to  us 
from  sense-experience  alone.  And  since  the  central 
weakness  of  agnosticism  is  its  theory  of  knowledge, 
we  shall  have  to  point  out  as  briefly  as  possible  the 
untenability  of  the  sensational  doctrine  of  knowl- 
edge. Ultimately  we  shall  find  that  any  foundation 
in  knowledge  for  science  is  also  a  foundation  for 
religion. 

The  Sensational  Theory  of  Knowledge.  Locke,  Hume, 
and  Spencer  all  rest  their  speculations  upon  a  concep- 
tion of  the  knowing  process  which  has  been  entirely 
discounted  by  criticism.  The  sensational  psychology 
treated  knowing  as  a  kind  of  mechanical   process. 


PHILOSOPHIC  WORLD-VIEWS  69 

Somehow  the  mind  was  "impressed"  with  the  object, 
or  an  "image"  of  the  object  "passed  into  the  mind." 
These  and  other  crude  metaphors  were  made  to  do 
duty  in  explaining  perception  and  knowledge.  But 
how  objects  which  are  physical  ever  produce  sensa- 
tions in  the  mind  which  are  mental  has  never  been 
shown.  When  we  see  an  object  the  ether  vibrations 
strike  the  retina  and  set  up  a  stimulus  which  is  pre- 
sumably some  kind  of  molecular  motion.  This  is 
transmitted  to  the  central  organ  of  the  nervous  sys- 
tem, the  brain.  But,  as  we  have  seen,  this  molecular 
motion  is  no  nearer  being  a  thought  in  the  brain  than 
it  was  on  the  retina.  To  all  attempts  to  explain  the 
origin  of  thought  from  physical  sensations  the  only 
tenable  answer  is  that  the  mind  creates  thoughts  by 
virtue  of  its  own  activity.  On  the  occasion  of  the 
stimulus  from  without,  the  mind  reacts,  and  thoughts 
arise  which  are  the  mind's  interpretation  of  reality. 
That  the  thoughts  which  are  constantly  being  born  in 
our  minds  are  parallel  to  and  do  interpret  in  some 
adequate  way  the  order  of  objective  reality,  is  one  of 
the  great  fundamental  assumptions  of  our  rational 
life.  Why  our  thoughts  do  arise,  and  why  those 
thoughts  grasp  reality  we  can  no  more  say  than  we 
can  tell  why  we  are  rational  beings.  A  theory  of 
knowledge  which  denies  the  independent  existence 
and  activity  of  the  conscious  self  ends  in  a  skepti- 
cism which  is  not  only  fatal  to  religion,  but  to  all 
science  as  well. 

The  knowing  process  is  not  simply  the  mechanical 
registering  of  sensations,  but  is  the  interpretation  of 
that  which  comes  to  us  from  the  object.  We  know 
more    than    simply    the    sense    qualities    of    things. 


70    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

Knowledge  arises  from  the  perception  of  relations 
among  our  ideas.  In  strict  conformity  with  that 
which  comes  to  us  from  objective  reality,  the  mind 
relates  its  objects  of  thought  and  so  builds  up  knowl- 
edge. That  this  mental  product  called  knowledge  is 
valid  for  reality  is  the  fundamental  assumption  upon 
which  all  our  rational  life  depends.  But  we  have 
transcended  phenomena  in  this  spontaneous  activity 
of  the  mind.  Mere  sensations  could  give  us  no 
knowledge.  They  could  not  associate  themselves.  It 
is  our  reason  which  associates  and  interprets.  The 
sensational  theory  of  knowledge  leads  to  absolute 
skepticism — scientific  no  less  than  religious.7 

The  Agnostic's  Unknowable.  But  we  must  inquire 
further  concerning  this  Unknowable  of  Mr.  Spencer. 
He  tells  us  we  can  know  that  the  unknowable  exists. 
All  other  knowledge  is  relative — phenomenal,  that  is, 
merely  appearance.  Spencer  assures  us  that  science 
deals  only  with  phenomena.  But  what  ground  of 
existence  have  these  phenomena?  Let  us  see.  Ac- 
cording to  the  agnostic,  when  I  perceive  an  object, 
my  knowledge  of  it  is  a  sensation  or  associated  sensa- 
tions. We  must  not  inquire  concerning  the  ground 
or  source  from  wrhich  those  sensations  come.  That 
would  be  to  get  beyond  the  limits  of  the  phenomenal 
and  meddle  with  notions,  wmich  we  have  been  warned 
are  inscrutable.  But  is  the  (phenomenal)  object  of 
my  knowledge  simply  my  own  affair?  Does  the  exist- 
ence of  this  phenomenon  of  my  experience  depend 
simply  and  solely  upon  my  own  individual  sense 
impressions?    Or  is  it  a  common  affair  for  all  finite 


7  Probably  the  most  thorough  overhauling  the  sensational  doctrine  of  knowledge 
has  ever  received  is  that  in  The  Introduction  to  Hume,  by  Thomas  Hill  Green. 


PHILOSOPHIC  WORLD-VIEWS  71 

minds?  It  cannot  be  an  individual  affair,  for  that 
would  make  the  reality  of  the  object  to  depend  upon 
individual  knowledge  of  it,  which  is  absurd.  The 
thing  existed,  of  course,  before  I  perceived  it.  Nor 
can  there  be  any  basis  of  reality  for  the  object  in  com- 
mon knowledge,  for  the  philosophy  of  agnosticism 
does  not  permit  us  to  think  of  things  as  objects  of  our 
knowledge  in  realistic  fashion,  that  is,  in  the  sense  of 
being  substantive  realities.  They  are  only  phenom- 
ena. Where  are  the  phenomena  then?  What  possible 
basis  can  we  assign  for  the  reality  of  the  things  of 
which  we  have  phenomenal  knowledge?  This  is  the 
inevitable  embarrassment  into  which  all  doctrines  of 
the  phenomenality  of  knowledge  are  soon  driven. 
Kant  tried  to  save  himself,  as  is  well  known,  by  the 
notion  of  the  "thing-in-itself."  And  when  Fichte 
demolished  the  thing-in-itself  the  only  way  that  lay 
open  was  toward  idealism. 

But  Mr.  Spencer  did  not  try  to  save  himself,  for  the 
reason  that  he  did  not  realize  the  plight  his  theory 
wTas  in.  The  weakness  and  inconsistency  of  his  doc- 
trine of  relativity  never  dawned  on  him.  Now,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  above  problem  as  to  the  basis  of 
reality  for  the  phenomenal  object  of  our  knowledge, 
can  be  solved  only  on  the  plane  of  theistic  idealism, 
which  thinks  of  the  Infinite  Mind  as  the  ground  of 
both  the  finite  object  and  the  finite  subject.  It  is 
true,  of  course,  that  objects  can  exist  only  for  the 
mind  that  perceives  them.  Their  existence,  however, 
cannot  be  made  to  depend  upon  that  mind.  We  can- 
not say  that  things  exist  only  for  this  or  that  indi- 
vidual mind.  If,  then,  they  are  independent  of  each 
and  every  finite  mind,  their  existence  must  depend 


72    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

upon  an  Infinite  Mind  as  the  ground  and  condition  of 
their  reality. 

In  Mr.  Spencer's  thinking,  phenomena  seem  to  be 
independent  of  us.  Their  existence  certainly  does  not 
depend  upon  us.  What  does  it  depend  upon?  What 
is  their  relation  to  the  basal  reality — the  Unknow- 
able? Mr.  Spencer  is  obliged  to  make  changes  and 
relations  among  things  point  to  some  corresponding 
changes  and  relations  in  basal  reality.  lie  had  to 
choose  between  making  the  phenomenal  objects  of 
knowledge  independent  of  the  Unknowable  (and  this 
would  be  to  drop  back  into  materialism)  or  else  to 
find  no  ground  whatever  for  the  phenomenal  objects 
of  knowledge.  He  really  had  to  make  his  objects  to 
depend  upon  the  Unknowable,  with  the  result  that  he 
is  gradually  forced  to  affirm  quite  a  good  many  things 
about  the  Unknowable — so  many,  indeed,  that  Mr. 
Mill  complained  that  we  were  receiving  "a  prodigious 
amount  of  knowledge  respecting  the  Unknowable." 
And  Mr.  Bradley  remarks  that  Spencer  gives  us  more 
information  about  the  Unknowable  than  the  most  dog- 
matic theologian  would  dare  to  about  God ! 

Spencer  tried  to  work  out  agnosticism  as  a  philo- 
sophical system,  but  he  failed.  Some  of  his  followers 
tried  to  tinker  the  synthetic  philosophy  so  as  to  make 
it  philosophically  respectable,  but  without  success. 
The  weaknesses  are  too  deep-seated.  They  are  consti- 
tutional. Spencer's  doctrine  of  the  relativity  of 
knowledge  was  derived  from  Kant  and  Hamilton.  In 
the  thinking  of  the  latter  "The  Absolute"  was  a  purely 
logical  abstraction.  Hamilton  said  that  to  think  is  to 
condition,  that  is,  it  is  to  relate  the  thing  thought 
to  all  other  things.    But  to  do  this  with  the  Absolute 


PHILOSOPHIC  WORLD-VIEWS  73 

and  the  Infinite  is  clearly  impossible  without  destroy- 
ing the  Absoluteness.  Hence  the  Absolute  is  nnthink- 
able,  and  of  the  Infinite  and  the  Absolute  we  can 
therefore  have  no  knowledge.  But  all  this  is  ab- 
stractly logical — and  purely  verbal.  To  think  a 
thing  is  indeed  to  know  it  in  its  relations  to  other 
things.  But  to  set  up  a  conception  of  the  Absolute  as 
unrelated  and  therefore  as  impossible  to  our  thought, 
and  then  to  charge  our  thought  with  hopeless  limita- 
tions because  such  a  conception  is  found  to  be  un- 
thinkable, is  entirely  illegitimate.  It  is  an  artificially 
made  dualism.  Yet  this  is  the  gist  of  Hamilton's 
doctrine  of  the  Unconditioned.  Its  fallacies  are 
understood  now,  and  the  older  agnosticism  of  Ham- 
ilton and  Mansel  is  not  taken  very  seriously. 

Conclusion.  And  now  in  summing  up  the  case 
against  agnosticism  we  must  note  a  few  important 
considerations.  Agnosticism's  denial  that  there  can 
be  any  knowledge  of  God  sets  definite  limits  to  human 
knowledge.  The  limitation  is  in  two  forms:  First, 
the  human  mind  is  declared  to  have  such  inherent 
limitations  that  knowledge  of  God  is  impossible. 
Second,  God  is  so  constituted  that  he  cannot  make 
himself  known  to  the  thought  of  men.  The  agnostic 
often  poses  as  the  humblest  among  the  thinkers.  He 
is  the  last  to  grow  dogmatic !  But  here  is  dogmatism 
indeed !  The  affirmation  that  knowledge  must  be  only 
of  the  phenomenal  has  already  been  considered.  We 
rest  the  matter  by  repeating  that  all  knowledge  of 
things  as  real  must  rest  upon  some  assurance  that  we 
know  also  the  ground  of  their  reality.  To  this  any 
tenable  theory  of  thought  brings  us.  But  how  does 
the  agnostic  know  that  the  Infinite  cannot  make  him- 


74    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

self  known,  since  all  knowledge,  we  are  assured,  is 
confined  to  the  phenomenal  in  our  sense  experience? 
If  God  is  inscrutable,  as  agnosticism  urges,  what 
ground  is  left  from  which  the  agnostic  may  infer  that 
God  cannot  make  himself  known  to  the  finite  mind? 
The  truth  is  we  meet  here  the  same  old  dualism.  The 
Infinite  and  finite  are  thought  of  as  standing  over 
each  other  in  mutual  exclusion.  But  surely  we 
may  affirm  an  Infinite  which  does  not  exclude  but 
includes  the  finite.  This  is  the  conclusion  of  all  sound 
philosophy.  And  this  disposes  of  the  agnostic  ob- 
jection that  the  Infinite  is  the  unrelated.  And  who 
shall  say  that  knowledge  which  must  always  involve 
both  the  reports  which  come  from  the  things  and 
the  independent  rationality  of  the  mind  does  not 
grasp  reality?  Now,  we  have  seen  how  the  doctrine 
of  the  relativity  of  knowledge  fails  to  find  any  basis 
for  the  reality  of  phenomena.  Our  knowledge  of  them 
is  the  basis  of  their  reality  for  us,  but  the  basis  of 
their  reality  as  part  of  the  world  of  existence  can- 
not be  our  mind,  but  must  be  the  Infinite  Mind.  This 
Infinite  Mind  is  not  ouly  a  part  of  reality,  but  is  the 
Eternal  Ground  of  Reality.  And  who  shall  say  that 
if  we,  in  knowing,  grasp  reality  at  all,  we  may  not 
know  the  Eternal  Ground  of  Reality,  God,  and  God 
may  not  make  himself  known  to  us? 

Agnosticism  and  Christian  Thought.  Agnosticism  is  not 
a  system  of  philosophy.  It  has  no  doctrine  which 
stands  the  test  of  critical  examination.  But  it  was  a 
powerful  protest,  and  as  such  it  has  exerted  a  great 
influence.  It  was  a  protest,  in  the  name  of  modem 
science,  against  the  conceptions  of  God  which  Chris- 
tianity had  inherited  from  former  ages.     The  tre- 


PHILOSOPHIC  WORLD-VIEWS  75 

mendous  advance  in  scientific  thinking  during  the 
second  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  rendered  the 
older  idea  of  God  and  his  relation  to  the  world  wholly 
inadequate.  A  reconstruction  had  to  come  if  Chris- 
tian thought  was  to  continue  to  command  the  respect 
of  the  modern  mind  and  serve  the  needs  of  modern 
life.  Indeed,  every  age  needs  to  reinterpret  and  re- 
state the  great  fundamental  verities.  And  the  agnostic 
movement  served  the  purpose  of  a  call  to  the  Chris- 
tian Church  to  bring  her  teachings  about  God  and  the 
world  into  better  harmony  with  the  great  revelations 
which  God  had  been  making  through  modern  science. 
And  the  Church  is  always  sluggish  in  this  important 
work.  This  is  because  of  the  mental  inertia  of  the 
theological  conservative,  and  also  because  so  many 
erroneously  suppose  that  to  change  doctrine  is  to 
tamper  with  the  truth.  They  do  not  realize  that  the 
truth  about  God  is  eternal  and  indestructible.  The 
defenders  of  a  traditional  dogmatic  orthodoxy  have 
always  been  temporarily  blinded  by  rather  sudden 
bursts  of  truth.  But  some  of  them  come  slowly  trail- 
ing along  in  time.  This  has  been  unfortunately  the 
story  of  the  attitude  of  church  leaders  to  the  truth 
quite  generally — from  the  days  of  Galileo  even  to  the 
present.  But  agnosticism  has  done  its  work,  and 
we  may  well  be  thankful  to  God  for  scientists  of  such 
splendid  intellectual  integrity  as  Professor  Huxley. 
He  and  many  like  him  were  loyal  to  the  truth  as  they 
saw  it.  They  would  not  profess  allegiance  to  an 
orthodoxy  which  did  not  represent  their  profound 
convictions  of  truth.  And  what  they  did  was  to  force 
the  issue  clearly.  The  mighty  array  of  facts  which 
modern  science  has  won  is,  of  course,  a  great  exten- 


76    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

sion  of  the  divine  revelation.  And  Christian  scholar- 
ship has  made  and  is  still  making  the  necessary  rein- 
terpretation. 

It  has  been  often  assumed  that  agnosticism  means 
utter  irreligion,  and  that  the  agnostic  has  no  belief 
in  God.  But  while  there  is  some  ground  for  this 
assumption,  it  is  not  always  true.  Toward  the  close 
of  his  life  Professor  Huxley  made  the  only  confes- 
sion of  religious  faith  which  we  find.  He  quotes  the 
great  statement  of  the  meaning  of  religion  from  the 
prophet  Micah :  "And  what  doth  the  Lord  require  of 
thee,  but  to  do  justly,  and  to  love  mercy,  and  to  walk 
humbly  with  thy  God?"  He  then  added  this  com- 
ment :  "If  any  so-called  religion  takes  away  from  this 
great  saying  of  Micah,  I  think  it  wantonly  mutilates, 
while,  if  it  adds  thereto,  I  think  it  obscures  the  perfect 
ideal  of  religion."  8  It  may  be  that  beneath  his  con- 
troversial spirit  and  his  hostility  to  the  orthodoxy 
of  his  time,  he  did  have  some  glimmering  that  the  self- 
disclosures  of  God  are  not  cast  in  the  set  molds  of  dog- 
matic orthodoxy,  but  are  a  living  and  growing  revela- 
tion to  the  human  spirit. 

After  all,  a  broad  view  of  the  divine  revelation  as  it 
may  be  discerned  not  only  in  nature  but  also  in  the 
thought-life  of  mankind,  finds  a  place  for  the  great 
scientists  as  prophets  of  God's  truth,  no  less  than  the 
great  preachers.  And  if  we  believe  that  the  advance 
of  truth  has  gone  on  under  the  immanent  guidance 
of  God  himself,  may  we  not  even  think  that  God  has 
in  his  inscrutable  wisdom  used  even  the  stern  and 
earnest  prophets  of  honest  doubt  to  help  expand 
and  purify  Christian  thinking,  so  that  the  spiritual 


8  See  Huxley's  Essays,  "Genesis  Versus  Nature." 


PHILOSOPHIC  WORLD-VIEWS  77 

religion  might  not  be  bound  by  speculative  theol- 
ogy? 

3.  Pantheism 

Meaning  of  Pantheism.  The  name  is  one,  but  that  for 
which  the  name  stands  is  many.  Pantheism  is  a  way 
of  thinking  about  the  world,  especially  a  way  of  con- 
ceiving rationally  the  relation  of  the  world  of  finite 
persons  and  things  to  the  Ground  of  all  reality — the 
Eternal  Spirit.  This  way  of  thinking  about  the  world 
may  be  primitive — mythological  rather  than  philo- 
sophical in  the  modern  sense.  The  early  mystical 
pantheism  of  India  is  of  this  sort.  The  doctrine  of 
the  impersonal  World-Soul  of  Brahmanism  is  poetic 
and  mythological.  Salvation  through  union  with  this 
spiritual  principle  is  a  mysticism  as  positive  as  it  is 
primitive.  But  pantheism  may  also  be  said  to  be  not 
only  a  way  of  thinking  but  a  way  of  feeling  about  the 
universe.  And  that  basal  unity  and  consistency 
which  is  the  profoundest  assumption  of  all  science 
and  philosophy  becomes  an  underlying  harmony  and 
beauty  when  we  think  of  the  soul  seeking  to  grasp 
something  of  the  meaning  of  the  universe  through 
feeling  as  well  as  through  thought.  A  philosopher 
like  Hegel  seeks  to  set  forth  the  great  principle  of 
cosmic  unity  in  the  conception  of  Absolute  Mind.  A 
poet  like  Shelley  sings  of  the  great  Spiritual  Pres- 
ence in  the  universe  which  is  manifested  in  cosmic 
harmony  and  beauty.  We  may  recognize  pantheism 
as  a  perception  through  feeling  of  Eternal  Reality, 
but  the  feelings  are  fleeting  and  somewhat  vague. 
Though  real,  they  defy  definition  and  analysis.  For 
our  present  purpose,  then,  we  shall  consider  the  pan- 


78    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

theism  which  is  an  attempt  to  find  by  way  of  specu- 
lative thinking  some  rational  conception  of  the  rela- 
tion of  the  finite  and  the  Infinite. 

Pantheism  a  Monism.  The  pantheistic  world-view  is 
not  only  a  philosophical  but  also  a  religious  doctrine. 
It  is  one  answer  to  the  profound  problem  of  the  rela- 
tion of  the  finite  world  to  the  Infinite — the  world  of 
things  and  persons  to  God.  There  are  three  thought 
systems  or  world-views  which  seek  to  answer  this 
great  problem.  They  are  deism,  pantheism,  and 
theism.  Materialism  finds  no  place  for  God,  and 
therefore  is  not  concerned  with  the  relation  of  the 
finite  world  to  the  Infinite  Ground  of  the  World. 
Materialistic  monism  identifies  the  world  of  things 
and  persons  with  the  Ground  of  all  Reality.  It  says 
Ultimate  Reality  is  matter  in  motion.  Pantheism  too 
seeks  to  identify  the  world  of  things  and  persons  with 
the  Ground  of  all  Reality.  But  pantheism  results 
when  the  metaphysical  problem  of  the  ground  of 
being  has  been  answered  in  an  idealistic  way.  Ulti- 
mate Reality  is  not  matter  but  spirit,  and  pantheism 
affirms  not  simply  the  rational  harmony  but  the  unity 
and  identity  of  the  finite  world  with  the  Infinite  Spirit 
of  the  universe. 

Pantheism  and  Deism.  Pantheism  does  indeed  meet 
the  demand  of  reason  for  a  unitary  principle  of  Being 
back  of  all  the  complexity  of  finite  existence.  We 
have  seen  that  such  a  demand  appears  in  every  philo- 
sophic world-view.  For  ages  this  vague  but  great  con- 
viction has  persisted  in  human  thinking — this  convic- 
tion that  beneath  its  diversity  the  world  is  a  unity. 
The  crude  doctrine  named  deism  gave  up  all  attempts 
at  a  monistic  solution  of  the  problems  of  existence. 


PHILOSOPHIC  WORLD-VIEWS  79 

Its  teaching  was  dualistic.  According  to  this  view, 
the  world  was  created  by  God.  This  creation  was  a 
definite  act  or  series  of  acts  at  some  period  in  past 
time.  The  universe  at  its  creation  was  endowed  with 
certain  inherent  forces  which  were  supposed  to  be 
sufficient  to  provide  for  all  future  development.  But, 
according  to  this  view,  the  God  who  created  the  world 
is  to  be  thought  of  as  entirely  separate  from  it — he  is 
apart  from  it  or  above  it.  The  philosophy  of  the  deists 
in  no  way  forbade  God  interposing  his  divine  power 
in  the  affairs  of  the  universe.  The  creation  was  a 
tremendous  miracle  and  it  was  conceivable  that  other 
exhibitions  of  divine  power  might  follow.  But  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  deism  considered  miracles  superflu- 
ous and  really  irrational.  The  divine  work  was  so 
perfectly  done  at  creation  that  to  think  of  the  need  of 
any  later  interpositions  is  to  discount  the  divine  wis- 
dom. This  view,  it  will  be  seen,  erects  nature  into  a 
complete  system  which  runs  with  a  certain  independ- 
ence of  its  own  after  the  Creator  has  once  set  it 
in  motion.  That  this  really  destroys  the  most  char- 
acteristic attributes  of  the  Divine  soon  becomes  ap- 
parent. John  Stuart  Mill,  in  one  of  his  essays  on  reli- 
gion, says  that  God  is  a  "Being  of  great  but  limited 
power,  how  or  by  what  limited  we  cannot  even  con- 
jecture; of  great  and  perhaps  unlimited  intelligence, 
but  perhaps  also  more  narrowly  limited  than  his 
power ;  who  desires  and  pays  some  regard  to  the  hap- 
piness of  his  creatures,  but  who  seems  to  have  other 
motives  of  action  which  he  cares  more  for,  and  who 
can  hardly  be  supposed  to  have  created  the  universe 
for  that  purpose  alone."  9 

"Three  Esaaya  on  Religion,  p.  194. 


80    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

Against  all  such  dualisms,  and  present-day  plural- 
isms as  well,  pantheism  stands  as  a  protest.  And 
whatever  its  weakness  (and  we  shall  see  that  it  is 
gravely  inadequate),  pantheism  rests  upon  the  broad 
conception  that  the  world  is  at  bottom  a  unity,  and 
that  all  its  discord  is  resolved  in  the  great  funda- 
mental harmony  of  the  Infinite. 

Criticism  of  Pantheism.  In  the  case  of  materialism 
we  found  that  anything  like  a  thoroughgoing  criticism 
was  impossible  because  of  the  limits  imposed  by  the 
character  and  purpose  of  these  studies.  But  we  must 
seek  to  do  with  reference  to  pantheism  what  we  tried 
to  do  with  materialism,  namely,  to  indicate  the  direc- 
tion in  which  its  most  serious  shortcomings  as  a 
world-view  are  to  be  found. 

Taking  as  our  starting  point  the  foundation  tenet 
of  the  idealistic  metaphysics  that  the  ultimate  ground 
of  reality  is  Infinite  Mind,  the  crucial  question  is, 
How  are  we  to  think  of  the  finite  world — the  world  of 
persons  and  things — as  related  to  this  Infinite  Mind? 
The  answer  to  this  question  makes  the  difference 
between  theism  and  pantheism.  Theism  affirms  a 
dependence  of  the  world  upon  God.  God  is  thought 
of  as  an  Infinite  Person  or  personal  Spirit.  He  has 
created  human  beings  with  the  capacity  for  person- 
ality. This  capacity  develops  under  the  conditions  of 
our  life.  It  involves  to  a  greater  or  less  degree  the 
limited  independence  implied  in  freedom.  Freedom 
is  the  indispensable  factor  of  personality  and,  there- 
fore, a  fundamental  doctrine  of  theism.  But  any 
degree  of  independence  of  God  which  the  finite  person 
has  is,  of  course,  the  bestowal  of  God  and  the  direct 
expression  of  his  divine  will.     The  ground  for  this 


PHILOSOPHIC  WORLD-VIEWS  81 

relative  independence  in  the  freedom  of  the  finite  per- 
son is  found  in  God's  greatest  purposes  concerning 
men,  namely,  that  they  should  receive  moral  and  spir- 
itual development. 

Pantheism,  on  the  other  hand,  affirms  not  only  the 
dependence  but  the  identity  of  the  world  of  persons 
and  things  with  the  Infinite  Spirit.  But  though 
pantheism  uses  the  phraseology  of  identity,  it  really 
never  means  absolute  or  metaphysical  identity.  If 
the  world  and  God  were  really  identical,  then  the 
existence  of  the  two  concepts  and  the  two  names 
"finite"  and  "infinite"  would  be  meaningless.  There 
are,  of  course,  fundamental  differences  between  the 
finite  and  the  infinite;  some  essential  marks  of  the 
infinite  as  contrasted  with  the  finite,  and  the  finite  as 
contrasted  with  the  infinite.  Pantheism  gains  stand- 
ing ground,  logically  at  least,  by  blurring  but  not 
obliterating  these  characteristic  differences.  Those 
modern  pantheists  in  India  and  elsewhere  who  speak 
of  the  possibility  of  attaining  a  complete  harmony 
with  the  Infinite — a  merging  of  their  finite  thought, 
feeling  and  will  with  the  Infinite  Spirit — deny  vigor- 
ously that  this  means  the  annihilation  of  human  per- 
sonality. In  other  words,  they  repudiate  any  absolute 
identification  on  the  plane  of  the  human.  Generally, 
the  world  is  viewed  as  a  part  of  God,  or  a  mode  of 
God's  existence.  Pantheistic  world- views  are  of  two 
sorts :  First,  those  theories  in  which  nature  is  lifted 
up  into  the  supreme  place  as  the  eternal  ground  of 
existence.  Of  this  sort  is  Spinoza's  pantheism.  In 
his  Ethics,  where  his  views  concerning  the  finite  and 
Infinite  are  expounded,  the  words  "nature"  and  "sub- 
stance" could  be  substituted  for  "God"  with  no  loss 


82    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

of  meaning.  This  kind  of  pantheism  is  akin  to  mate- 
rialism. It  views  God  as  a  world-substance  rather 
than  a  First  Cause.  Spinoza  was  rightly  judged  an 
atheist  by  his  contemporaries.  Second,  those  theories 
in  which  God  is  thought  of  as  existing  in  and  through 
the  finite  world.  This  view,  which  regards  God  as 
Eternal  Spirit  and  as  the  First  Cause,  involves  the 
idea  of  immanence.  By  immanence  is  meant  that  the 
finite  world  ever  manifests  God — it  is  a  revelation  and 
expression  of  his  activity. 

Pantheism  and  Theism.  But  at  this  point  emerges  the 
difference — and  a  most  important  difference  it  is— 
between  the  pantheistic  view  and  theism.  Pantheism 
conceives  the  Divine  Spirit  in  the  world  as  imper- 
sonal, while  theism  affirms  the  personality  both  of  the 
Divine  Spirit  and  of  finite  spirits.  This  conception  of 
personality  is  the  greatest  one  of  philosophy,  and  it 
determines  absolutely  the  character  of  the  world-view 
where  it  is  present  as  the  central  dominating  idea, 
or  where  it  is  absent.  Pantheism  views  the  Divine 
Spirit  as  unconscious  and  impersonal.  Now,  the  con- 
ception of  unconscious  impersonal  spirit  is  extremely 
difficult,  and  I  believe  really  impossible  to  our  reason. 
When  so  qualified  the  word  "spirit"  can  mean  little 
more  than  Being  conceived  as  activity.  And  in  pro- 
portion as  materialism  outgrows  the  "stuff"  theory 
of  matter  and  adopts  an  idea  of  matter  as  the  seat 
or  manifestation  of  eternal  energy,  in  just  that  pro- 
portion do  pantheism  and  materialism  approach  each" 
other  and  merge.  There  is  a  good  deal  of  materialism 
which  is  essentially  pantheism.  Of  such  character 
was  Spencer's  speculations  so  far  as  they  touched 
upon  an  Unknowable — the  ground  of  all  existence. 


PHILOSOPHIC  WORLD-VIEWS  83 

So  also  are  the  hybrid,  mystical  notions  of  material- 
istic monism  such  as  the  "mind  stuff"  of  Clifford.  All 
the  logical  landmarks  are  gone  and  thought  staggers 
around  blindly  when  "unconscious  spirit,"  "conscious 
matter,"  "mind  stuff,"  and  such  logical  monstrosities 
are  introduced  into  what  professes  to  be  rational 
speculation.  Where  the  adjective  devours  the  noun, 
thought  is  left  so  confused  that  in  other  matters  than 
philosophy  we  generally  do  not  hesitate  to  pronounce 
the  result  nonsense.  We  repeat,  then,  our  conviction 
that  the  world-view  which  rests  upon  such  an  idea  as 
"unconscious  spirit"  is  incapable  of  being  thought 
through  in  any  sober  and  rational  fashion.  If  we  are 
content  with  a  philosophy  which  can  be  felt  rather 
than  thought,  pantheism  will  no  doubt  serve  us.  But 
just  as  soon  as  we  begin  to  subject  pantheism  to  legit- 
imate philosophical  analysis  (by  that  we  mean  inquire 
what  relation  its  underlying  conceptions  have  to  our 
experience  and  also  what  is  their  value  for  our  expe- 
rience), then  their  rational  filminess  and  vagueness 
appears.  Pantheism  always  begins  to  approach 
theism  as  soon  as  it  is  taken  seriously  as  a  practical 
religious  doctrine ;  that  is  to  say,  as  soon  as  it  begins 
properly  to  reckon  with  experience.  Indeed,  the  way 
some  of  the  modern  expounders  of  the  Absolute  philos- 
ophy have  had  to  turn  their  faces  toward  theism  and 
adopt  its  ideas  and  phraseology  even  while  professing 
to  hold  to  the  fundamental  Absolute  doctrine,  is  an 
illustration  in  point.10 

On  the  other  hand,  the  older  theism  has  felt  the 


10  Professor  Roy ce,  in  his  admirable  discussion  of  the  place  of  the  self  in  the  universe, 
eeems  to  be  far  more  of  a  theist  than  a  pantheist,  though  his  speculative  position  is 
that  of  the  philosophy  of  the  Absolute  (see  Royce,  The  World  and  the  Individual, 
vol.  ii,  Lecture  vii). 


84    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

strong  influence  of  pantheism.  While  holding  to  the 
transcendent  conception  on  the  personal  plane, 
modern  theism  also  expounds  a  doctrine  of  the  divine 
immanence.  The  world  of  things  can  have  no  inde- 
pendent existence.  The  Divine  Mind  is  the  ground 
of  all  the  activity  of  the  natural  universe.  And  here 
again  we  see  that  the  division  is  on  the  basis  of 
whether  the  Divine  Mind  shall  be  thought  of  as  per- 
sonal or  impersonal.  A  personal  Divine  Mind  swings 
our  thought  over  to  theism,  while  an  impersonal 
Divine  Mind  sends  our  thought  back  into  materialism. 

There  are,  then,  after  all,  only  two  great  world- 
views.  One  regards  a  personal  Eternal  Spirit  as  the 
source  and  ground  of  all  existence.  The  other  sees 
the  ground  of  existence  in  an  impersonal  Eternal 
Energy  (unconscious  Spirit-Energy).  The  first  of 
these  is  theism,  the  second  is  materialism  in  one  of 
its  several  forms. 

Pantheism  and  the  Moral  Life.  We  are  now  in  position 
to  see  what  are  the  implications  of  pantheism  so  far 
as  our  moral  life  is  concerned.  If  the  Eternal  Spirit 
is  unconscious  and  impersonal,  then  all  activities 
which  come  from  the  Eternal  Spirit  as  their  ground 
are  mechanically  determined.  Purpose  finds  no  place 
in  the  activity  of  the  impersonal  World-Spirit.  The 
evolutionary  processes  whereby  the  manifold  forms  of 
life  are  unfolded  are  just  as  thoroughly  necessitated 
in  a  pantheistic  system  as  in  a  materialistic  scheme. 
This  means  that  a  pantheistic  view  has  all  the  embar- 
rassments under  which  materialism  suffers.  The 
problem  of  error  in  cognition  and  of  moral  evil  in 
conduct  are  cases  in  point,  for  a  consistent  pantheism 
must  affirm  that  not  only  the  ongoing  forces  of  nature 


PHILOSOPHIC  WORLD-VIEWS  85 

but  also  all  the  activities  of  the  finite  self  are  modes 
or  manifestations  of  the  Divine  Activity.  The  doc- 
trine of  immanence  may,  indeed,  be  applied  to  nature 
without  consequences  serious  to  reason.  While  dif- 
ficult problems  loom  up,  yet  we  cannot  think  of 
nature's  power  as  other  than  God's  power.  But  if  we 
think  of  human  activity  as  God's  activity,  we  are  soon 
involved  in  consequences  of  the  gravest  nature — so 
grave,  indeed,  that  they  threaten  the  destruction  of 
rational  thinking.  Is  the  divine  thought  really  im- 
manent in  all  the  thoughts  of  men?  Then  their  error, 
blundering,  stupidity,  meanness,  and  malice  are  all 
somehow  either  modes  of  the  Eternal  Spirit's  activity, 
or  else  they  have  no  real  existence.  Some  pantheists 
do  indeed  say  that  since  we  cannot  include  error  and 
evil  as  a  part  of  the  activity  of  the  Divine  Mind, 
therefore  error  and  evil  are  not  real.  Error,  we 
are  told,  either  does  not  exist  at  all  or  else  is  truth 
imperfectly  perceived  and  inadequately  realized.  And 
as  for  evil,  it  too  has  no  existence,  or  it  is  good,  labor- 
ing under  the  same  temporary  disadvantages!  This 
is  the  position  into  which  thoroughgoing  and  consist- 
ent pantheists  have  been  forced  from  the  Vedanta 
philosophy  of  India  to  modern  theosophy  and  Eddy- 
ism  to-day.  It  is  difficult  to  call  this  kind  of  thing  by 
the  name  of  philosophy  at  all,  or  even  to  be  patient 
with  it. 

And  this  is  not  all.  A  pantheism  which  makes 
human  thought  and  action  a  mode  of  the  Absolute  not 
only  must  turn  away  and  refuse  to  reckon  with  facts 
of  our  human  experience  which  stare  us  in  the  face, 
but  it  wrecks  its  own  doctrine.  For  how  can  the  unity 
of  the  Absolute  itself  be  preserved?    If  my  thoughts 


86    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

with  their  obvious  imperfection  and  limitations  are 
a  manifestation  or  mode  of  the  Divine  Thought,  what 
is  the  relation  of  the  Absolute,  thinking  perfect 
thoughts,  to  the  same  Absolute  manifesting  itself  in 
my  imperfect  thoughts?  The  essential  characteristics 
of  the  human — namely,  moral  limitation  and  imper- 
fection— must  be  denied  and  the  human  made  essen- 
tially divine,  or  else  an  element  of  moral  imperfection 
must  be  admitted  in  the  Absolute. 

Pantheism  and  Religion.  By  teaching  that  the  Eternal 
Spirit  of  the  universe  is  impersonal,  pantheism  under- 
mines and  renders  irrational  all  religious  worship 
except  the  attitude  of  awe  and  reverence  in  the  pres- 
ence of  infinite  power.  Some  would  remind  us  that 
the  love  and  appreciation  of  the  beauty  of  the  universe 
is  religion.  It  is,  indeed,  a  part  of  religion  when  it 
helps  us  to  realize  communion  with  the  Eternal  Spirit. 
But  if  God  be  conceived  as  impersonal,  as  principle, 
as  eternal  energy,  then  fellowship  and  communion  are 
impossible.  We  cannot  be  thankful  to  a  principle, 
nor  can  we  expect  response  from  an  Absolute  con- 
ceived as  the  sum  of  all  energy.  In  any  system  where 
nature  is  identified  with  God,  prayer  will  find  but 
slight  place.  The  main  motive  which  prompts  the 
human  spirit  to  seek  the  Divine  Spirit  in  thanksgiv- 
ing and  prayer  is  the  expectation  of  some  response. 
And  in  the  absence  of  such  expectation  worship,  as  it 
has  found  expression  in  the  religious  beliefs  and  prac- 
tices of  men,  becomes  impossible. 

But  we  have  pointed  out  enough  to  show  that  as  a 
world-view  pantheism  also  is  very  inadequate.  When 
consistent  with  itself  the  doctrine  involves  us  in  many 
desperate  embarrassments.    And  avoiding  these,  pan- 


PHILOSOPHIC  WORLD-VIEWS  87 

theism  must  approach  theism.  The  question  of  per- 
sonality is  central  and  fundamental.  In  Chapter  V 
we  take  up  its  discussion.  Personality  is  not  only  the 
foundation  doctrine  of  theism,  but  it  is  the  most  im- 
portant conception  of  modern  philosophy.  Its  evolu- 
tion in  our  life  is  the  most  characteristic  feature  of 
human  existence.  It  is  the  ultimate  reality  in  all 
human  relationships.  Physics  and  chemistry  may 
perhaps  be  discussed  without  it,  but  not  ethics,  eco- 
nomics, sociology,  psychology,  or  religion.  Most  of 
our  discussion  in  the  subsequent  chapters  of  these 
studies  will  center  around  it.  It  is  the  basis  of  all  that 
makes  our  life  of  abiding  worth  here  and  now,  and  it 
is  the  only  philosophical  ground  of  a  hope  for  the  con- 
tinuance of  our  life  in  the  great  unknown  future. 

4.  The  Christian  World-View 

Theism  the  Only  Christian  World- View.  We  have  now 
briefly  discussed  two  of  the  three  great  world-views, 
materialism  and  pantheism.  We  have  found  ample 
reasons  to  consider  both  inadequate.  We  have  noted 
also  that  neither  leaves  any  place  for  the  basic  beliefs 
of  Christianity.  It  remains  now  to  ask  whether  there 
is  a  philosophic  way  of  looking  at  things,  of  thinking 
about  God  and  the  world  and  humanity  and  their  rela- 
tion, which  will  "hold  the  facts  together"  and  yet 
afford  a  rational  and  adequate  interpretation  of  the 
whole  of  our  experience.  To  point  out  that  we  find 
such  a  world-view  in  Christian  theism  is  one  of  the 
purposes  of  these  studies.  We  hope  to  show  that 
Theism  is  a  consistent  and  tenable  philosophical 
framework  into  which  it  is  possible  to  build  the  great 
essential  beliefs  of  Christian  Faith. 


88    FOUNDATIONS  OP  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

The  Aim  of  Religious  Philosophy.  To  bring  our  great 
religious  convictions  and  our  scientific  conceptions 
into  fundamental  harmony  is  one  of  the  principal 
aims  of  religious  philosophy.  And  the  necessary  con- 
dition of  finding  this  harmony  is  to  obtain  some  sub- 
stantial basis  in  philosophy  for  our  great  religious 
beliefs.  Indeed,  to  find  a  basis  of  unity  and  solidarity 
in  all  our  thinking  is  the  purpose  of  philosophizing. 
This  does  not  mean  that  a  philosophy  of  religion 
demands  that  all  our  beliefs  must  be  brought  into  the 
rational  or  philosophic  form,  or  even  that  they  must 
be  capable  of  logical  demonstration  or  rational 
analysis.  It  only  demands  that  there  shall  be  such 
adjustment  of  beliefs  to  facts  and  principles  that  no 
irrational  elements  are  given  a  place.  In  other  words, 
it  seeks  to  carry  out  our  deep  conviction  that  truth  is 
one,  and  if  we  are  to  secure  the  fullest  assurances  that 
our  conceptions  are  in  harmony  with  the  truth,  they 
must  be  in  rational  harmony  with  each  other.  This 
applies  even  to  our  ideas  of  God.  They  must  be  con- 
sonant with  the  truths  we  have  won  from  life.  This 
we  have  already  urged. 

We  shall  need  to  state  the  doctrine  of  Christian 
theism  only  in  outline  here,  for  the  remainder  of  these 
studies  are  devoted  really  to  the  exposition  of  the 
theistic  view  and  some  of  the  more  important  reli- 
gious implications  of  that  view. 

Christian  Theism  Outlined.  The  two  greatest  questions 
of  religious  philosophy  are:  (1)  What  is  the  nature 
of  reality — what  is  the  ground  of  all  being?  (2) 
What  is  the  relation  of  this  Ground  of  all  Reality  or 
World-Ground  to  the  human  Spirit?  It  will  be  seen 
that  both  of  these  great  questions  underlie  religion. 


PHILOSOPHIC  WORLD-VIEWS  89 

It  depends  upon  the  answer  to  the  first  question 
whether  any  place  is  made  for  the  Christian  religion 
or  not.  When  the  answer  to  that  question  is  that 
the  ground  of  all  reality  is  matter  in  motion,  the  reli- 
gious standpoint  which  results  is  atheism.  And  what- 
ever we  may  say  as  to  the  possibility  of  some  kind  of 
feeling  which  might  be  called  religious  on  the  basis 
of  materialistic  monism,  religion  as  it  is  understood 
by  students  of  the  science  of  religion  is  entirely  impos- 
sible. This  we  have  seen.  When,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  answer  is  that  the  ground  of  all  reality  is  imper- 
sonal Spirit,  the  religious  standpoint  which  results  is 
pantheism.  And  unless  pantheistic  religion  saves 
itself  (as  it  usually  does)  by  some  form  of  personifi- 
cation, the  outcome  is  practical  atheism.  This  also 
we  have  seen. 

The  answer  of  theism  to  this  great  problem  of  the 
relation  of  the  Infinite  to  the  world  is  that  the  In- 
finite, or  Absolute,  is  a  personal  ethical  Spirit,  in  vital 
moral  relations  with  finite  spirits;  and  that  the  rela- 
tion of  the  world  of  things  to  the  Infinite  is  that  of 
dependence.  The  world  of  things  is  the  manifestation 
or  revelation  of  the  purposeful  activity  of  the  Divine 
Spirit. 

Now  a  word  in  regard  to  the  terms  we  use  denoting 
the  World-Ground.  In  philosophy  God  is  often 
spoken  of  in  cosmic  relations  as  "the  Absolute"  and 
in  relation  to  finite  human  existence  as  "the  Infinite." 
But  for  religion  we  think  of  God  with  respect  to  per- 
sonal relations.  God  therefore  for  religion  is  not  so 
much  the  Absolute  or  the  Infinite  as  he  is  a  personal 
Spirit,  in  vital  moral  relations  with  men.  And  while 
we  may  use  the  philosophical  terms  for  the  Divine, 


90    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

we  shall  generally  speak  simply  of  God  in  outlining 
the  argument  for  theism. 

No  Explanation  of  Creation.  The  ground  of  things  is 
the  purpose  of  God  fulfilling  itself  constantly  in  his 
divine  activity.  But  how?  We  cannot  tell.  It  is  no 
more  the  task  of  philosophy  rationally  to  expound 
creation  than  it  is  to  attempt  to  explain  why  we  are 
rational  beings.  All  the  old  mythological  and  theo- 
logical theories  of  divine  creation  belong  to  an  age 
when  picture-thinking  was  made  to  do  duty  for  ra- 
tional reflection.  The  notion  that  God  created  the 
world  out  of  some  kind  of  raw  material — premundane 
"matter" — or  that  the  world  was  created  out  of 
"nothing,"  or  that  it  "emanated"  from  the  "divine 
essence" — all  these  notions  and  others  like  them  were 
crude  thought  struggling  to  express  the  great  truth 
that  the  world  is  dependent  upon  the  Divine  Activity 
for  its  being.  And  this  is  the  gist  of  theism's  doctrine 
of  creation.  That  it  cannot  be  explained  Ave  hasten 
to  admit.  The  process  by  which  the  will  and  activity 
of  God  result  in  the  physical  order  is  completely  be- 
yond us.  Did  the  world  have  a  definite  beginning  in 
time?  The  affirmative  answer  brings  with  it  a  swarm 
of  serious  difficulties.  For  example,  was  the  Deity 
inactive  for  a  long  period  and  then  awoke,  as  it  were, 
to  increased  action?  If  the  creation  of  the  world  was 
good,  was  God  content  with  less  than  the  possible 
maximum  of  good  during  all  the  time  before  creative 
activity  began?  These  may  appear  to  some  to  be  over- 
done speculative  refinements,  but  they  express  a  real 
difficulty  to  which  there  is  no  satisfying  answer.  But 
while  the  matter  is  by  no  means  cleared  up,  yet  its 
impenetrable  difficulty  is  modified  when  we  discard 


PHILOSOPHIC  WORLD-VIEWS  91 

as  uncritical  the  notion  of  an  empty  time  in  which 
things  take  place.  Time  is  a  thought  form.  It  is  that 
mode  in  which  we  apprehend  events  in  experience  and 
recognize  them  as  related  in  sequence.  God's  activity, 
being  eternal,  is  unbegun  in  time.  This  is  all  we  can 
say.  To  attempt  further  analysis  is  to  go  off  into  the 
realm  of  pure  speculation  with  nothing  whatever  in 
the  way  of  experience  upon  which  to  base  our  conclu- 
sions.11 In  any  event  creation  is  a  mystery.  All  we 
can  affirm  is  that  the  divine  will  and  activity  are  ever 
causing  that  to  exist  which  previously  had  no  exist- 
ence. 

And  what  shall  be  said  of  the  creation  of  finite 
spirits?  Again  we  confess  that  we  certainly  cannot 
fathom  either  the  creative  purposes  or  the  process. 
Theologians  have  told  us  that  God  in  the  early  ages 
of  cosmic  existence  needed  men  as  objects  of  his  love, 
and  that  therefore  their  creation  was  in  reality  the 
grand  consummation  of  the  Divine  Existence.  As  a 
suggestion  deepening  our  feeling  and  enriching  our 
content  of  the  meaning  of  the  divine  Personality,  this 
idea  might  perhaps  be  received  in  some  of  its  forms. 
But  it  must  be  confessed  that  as  soon  as  we  try  to 
relate  it  to  the  facts  of  science  or  put  it  into  philo- 
sophical form  it  becomes  dark  and  difficult.  The 
conception  that  at  some  point  in  past  time  God  com- 
pleted his  realization  of  himself  by  reproducing  him- 
self historically  is  a  proposition  which  grows  exceed- 
ingly obscure  when  either  scientific  or  metaphysical 
criticism  is  applied  to  it.  But  we  can  say  that  lesser 
or  finite  spirits  as  they  develop  under  the  limitations 
of  human  life  do  indeed  manifest  the  eternal  moral 


"See  LoUe,  Microcosmus,  book  ix,  chap,  v,  Bee.  4.     Bowne,  Metaphysics,  chap.  v. 


92    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

purpose  of  God — and  constitute  his  highest  possible 
manifestation.  Now,  if  God  is  to  have  in  finite  spirits 
any  worthy  fulfillment  of  himself,  they  must  have 
such  possibilities  and  capacities  that  they  will  mani- 
fest aspects  of  the  divine  purpose  not  manifested 
by  other  modes  of  creation.  Does  not  this  mean 
that  finite  spirits  must  have  the  power  to  develop 
those  characteristics  which  are  the  essential  elements 
in  the  divine  nature?  In  other  words,  a  worthy  ful- 
fillment of  the  divine  plan  in  creation  means  the 
growth  of  personality — self-consciousness,  self-deter- 
minism, and  moral  love.12  In  personal  spirits  even 
under  the  limitations  of  finite  conditions,  we  have 
then  what  theism  declares  is  a  manifestation — indeed, 
the  highest  manifestation  we  can  know — of  God.  This 
is  the  significance  of  the  biblical  teaching  that  "God 
made  man  in  his  own  image." 

God's  Moral  Purpose.  But  now  emerges  the  question 
concerning  the  relation  of  the  world  and  God  in  the 
matter  of  causality.  God  is  the  first  cause,  as  we  have 
seen.  He  is  the  ground  of  all  finite  existence.  But 
how  are  we  to  regard  all  movement  and  change  in  the 
world  of  things?  Science  has  opened  the  world  to  our 
knowledge.  We  recognize  the  reign  of  law.  The  great 
forces  of  nature  are  constant.  We  dare  not  say  they 
are  invariable.  Such  an  affirmation  would  be  log- 
ically indefensible.  But  we  may  say  that,  so  far  as 
our  experience  has  gone,  they  seem  to  be  invariable. 
But  theism  makes  the  world  to  depend  upon  the  will 
and  energy,  that  is,  the  purposive  activity  of  God. 
God's  purpose  is,  therefore  the  supreme  matter,  not 
invariability.    If  God's  purpose  demands  fixity  in  the 

J2  The  nature  and  implications  of  Personality  are  taken  up  in  Chapter  V. 


PHILOSOPHIC  WORLD-VIEWS  93 

operation  of  nature's  forces  (and  so  far  as  our  expe- 
rience goes  it  generally  does) ,  then  we  know  the  forces 
will  be  constant.  But  may  not  God's  purpose  demand 
variation?  WThy?  There  is  only  one  answer,  namely, 
for  moral  ends.  And  this  brings  us  to  the  realm  of  the 
personal  again.  Theism  teaches  not  only  that  God 
rules  the  universe  of  things  but  also  governs  the  world 
of  finite  spirits.  If  the  divine  purpose  be,  at  some 
point,  to  realize  a  great  moral  end  which  we  may 
believe  God  has  willed,  shall  he  not  seek  the  realiza- 
tion through  the  possible  variation  of  nature's  sched- 
ule as  well  as  through  her  unvarying  sequences?13 

And  if  self-manifestation  be  the  highest  end  of 
God's  moral  purpose,  then  his  creation  of  finite  spirits 
must  be  in  order  that  a  spiritual  nature  may  be  de- 
veloped in  them.  Thus  the  winning  of  moral  self- 
hood through  the  growth  of  character  appears  as  a 
significant  consequence  of  the  divine  activity.  If  God 
is  to  have  any  worthy  fulfillment  of  this  purpose,  men 
must  have  a  degree  of  moral  freedom.  However  it 
develops,  through  whatever  media  it  is  realized,  free- 
dom in  the  finite  spirit  is  indispensable  to  the  realiza- 
tion of  the  divine  jmrpose  for  men. 

The  possibilities  of  freedom  are  those  of  moral  evil. 
When  these  possibilities  have  become  actualities,  and 
error  and  evil — or,  to  use  the  religious  word,  sin — 
have  devastated  human  life,  then  the  divine  purpose 
becomes  one  of  redemption;  and  the  will  of  God  and 
the  activity  of  God  must  be  thought  of  as  expending 
themselves,  not  in  repairing  the  disaster  of  an  unfor- 
tunate miscarrying  of  the  divine  plan,  but  in  realizing 


13  This  is  worked  out  more  fully  in  Chapter  XIII,  where  the  natural  and  the  super- 
natural are  discussed. 


94    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

the  eternal  purpose  in  the  best  and  only  way  possible 
in  a  moral  universe. 

If  this  brief  and  fragmentary  outline  of  theism  has 
emphasized  the  really  essential  matters,  I  think  it 
will  be  agreed  that  such  view  of  the  world  is  in  essen- 
tial harmony  with  the  matchless  life  and  profound 
teachings  of  the  Divine  Founder  of  Christianity.  This 
world  is  not  a  mere  assemblage  of  things  and  persons, 
but  is  a  great  system,  expressing  in  all  its  change  and 
growth  the  eternal  purposes  of  God.  In  him  who  is 
eternal  and  over  all  we  live  and  move  and  have  our 

being. 

Materialism — Reading    Suggested 
Hermann  Lotze — Microcosmus,  Book  III,  Chapter  I. 
Borden  P.  Bowne — Metaphysics,  Part  III,  Chapters  I,  II. 
J.  Ward — Naturalism  and  Agnosticism,  Lectures  V  and  VI. 

Pantheism — Reading  Suggested 
Borden  P.  Bowne,  Theism,  Chapter  V. 
Hermann  Lotze,  Microcosmus,  Book  IX,  Chapter  V. 
George  Trumbull  Ladd,  Philosophy  of  Religion,  Chapter  XXXV. 
Borden  P.  Bowne,  Metaphysics,  Chapter  V. 


CHAPTER  III 
KNOWLEDGE,  BELIEF,  AND  FAITH 

Religious  Knowledge.  Knowledge  cannot  be  satis- 
factorily defined.  In  any  attempt  to  set  forth  its 
meaning  all  we  can  do  is  to  take  some  characteristic 
element  and  make  that  serve  as  a  beginning  in  our 
search  for  a  fuller  thought  content.  Remembering 
this,  it  may  be  suggested  that  we  know  when  we  have 
rationally  grounded  assurance  that  our  mental  con- 
ceptions adequately  and  truthfully  interpret  reality. 
In  the  present  chapter  the  discussion  will  have  to  do 
with  the  question  of  the  validity  of  our  knowledge 
chiefly  from  a  religious  point  of  view.  Is  there  such 
a  thing  as  religious  knowledge?  Can  we  have  cer- 
tainty that  the  great  fundamental  religious  ideas  upon 
which  the  superstructure  of  belief  and  worship  rests 
are  an  adequate  interpretation  of  reality? 

Authority  of  Religion — Its  Basis.  In  the  last  analysis 
the  authority  of  religion  depends  upon  the  validity  of 
our  fundamental  religious  ideas.  Let  a  man  begin  to 
think  that  religion  is,  after  all,  only  the  expression  of 
the  fond  hopes  of  humanity,  and  the  power  of  religion 
over  his  life  may  be  greatly  weakened,  if  not  de- 
stroyed. For  the  thinking  man  the  question  of  reli- 
gion's authority  is  bound  up  inevitably  and  inextric- 
ably with  that  of  validity.  And  by  validity  we  mean 
truth,  not  as  an  abstract  or  intangible  ideal,  but  truth 

95 


90    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

which  may  be  realized  through  some  firm  assurances 
that  our  thought  agrees  with  an  order  of  reality.  The 
mediaeval  dictum,  "Credo  quia  impossibile  est"  can 
never  be  the  attitude  of  a  rational  mind  earnestly  in 
search  of  truth.  No  matter  how  far  we  may  go  in 
search  of  the  truth,  we  shall  have  to  admit  that  there 
is  an  element  of  mystery  in  religion.  And  the  mystery 
will  remain.  The  human  mind  cannot  attempt  to 
think  of  the  Infinite  and  his  relation  to  the  world  of 
finite  spirits,  nor  attempt  to  trace  divine  activity  in 
nature,  without  soon  discovering  its  own  limitations. 
But,  granting  this,  we  urge  that  the  authority  of  reli- 
gion will  depend  upon  the  way  its  fundamental  con- 
ceptions can  be  accredited  through  the  reason  as 
essentially  truthful  interpretations  of  reality. 

It  becomes  evident,  then,  that  before  we  attempt  to 
present  a  philosophical  study  of  Christianity  in  its 
broad  outlines  we  must  make  sure  of  our  ground  by 
inquiring  into  the  validity  of  our  fundamental  reli- 
gious ideas.  We  must  seek  the  sources  of  religious 
certainty.  We  must  search  for  a  standard,  or  at  least 
a  method  by  which  to  determine  the  truth  of  the 
fundamental  conceptions  of  religion.  This  is  a  pro- 
foundly important  venture,  and  it  is  not  to  be  denied 
that  upon  the  possibility  of  finding  some  satisfying 
grounds  for  religious  certainty,  or  at  least  upon  our 
belief  in  such  possibility,  will  depend  the  vitality  and 
permanence  of  our  religious  conceptions. 

Divine  Revelation  and  Religious  Authority.  We  ask, 
then,  where  shall  we  look  for  the  ground  of  the 
authority  of  religion?  It  is  often  urged  that  author- 
ity in  religion  rests  upon  truth,  and  that  our  guar- 
antee of  truth  rests  upon  the  fact  of  a  divine  revela- 


KNOWLEDGE,  BELIEF,  FAITH  97 

tion.  Christianity  claims  to  possess  truth  which  has 
been  historically  revealed.  We  are  told  that  all  we 
need  to  do  is  to  accept  the  revelation  and  the  truths 
it  contains  will  accredit  themselves  on  the  ground  of 
their  origin.  But  while  this  appears  perfectly  simple 
and  almost  final,  yet  a  little  careful  reflection  shows 
us  that  it  is  not.  We  need  to  accept  the  revelation. 
And  what  does  "accept"  mean?  The  common  answer 
is  that  it  means  to  believe  the  revelation.  And  "be- 
lieve" in  turn  means  to  take  as  true  on  grounds  which 
seem  sufficient  to  the  one  believing.  But  what  are 
these  grounds  upon  which  rest  the  beliefs  which  we 
take  for  true?  They  must  be  either  reasons  or  feel- 
ings, or  both  reasons  and  feelings.  In  other  words, 
they  can  be  nothing  external  to  us.  This  suggests 
how  impossible  it  is  for  us  to  find  a  standard  of  valid- 
ity for  our  religious  conceptions  in  anything  inde- 
pendent of  our  own  thought  processes — those  of  both 
reason  and  feeling.  The  divine  revelation  has  to 
become  divine  to  us  and  hence  authoritative  to  us  on 
some  grounds.  Of  course  it  is  possible  to  stop  think- 
ing almost  anywhere  and  declare  that  we  accept  our 
beliefs  on  the  authority  of  our  church,  and  feel  satis- 
fied with  them  and  perfectly  certain  of  their  truth. 
But  one  would  hardly  be  justified  in  thus  setting  his 
own  subjective  states  up  as  a  standard  by  which  to 
judge  the  truth  of  the  great  fundamental  religious 
conceptions.  Admitting  fully  the  possibility  and  need 
of  a  divine  revelation,  we  see  that  it  cannot  be  an 
authority  independent  of  the  experience  of  the  indi- 
vidual believer.  A  revelation  does  not  furnish  ready- 
made  knowledge  of  spiritual  things.  Knowledge,  as 
we  shall  see,  is  always  a  creation  of  the  mind.     All 


98    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

that  a  revelation  does  is  to  afford  us  the  record  of  the 
spiritual  experiences  of  other  men  and  to  impart  a 
deepening  of  our  own  spiritual  consciousness.  The 
real  basis  for  the  recognition  of  the  authority  of  reli- 
gion lies  within  the  self. 

Experience  the  Ground  of  Religion's  Authority.  Then, 
again,  we  often  hear  it  urged  that  our  assurance  of 
the  truth  of  religion,  and  hence  its  authority,  rests 
upon  experience.  This  is  undoubtedly  true.  But 
we  must  ask  what  is  meant  by  experience.  Whose 
experience?  And  what  does  the  experience  mean? 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  experience  includes  about  every- 
thing. In  the  psychological  sense,  experience  stands 
for  all  that  arises  in  the  mind.  Of  course  this  can- 
not be  the  meaning.  We  must  mean  by  experience 
in  this  connection  all  that  arises  in  the  mind — of 
knowledge,  feeling,  and  belief — wThich  affords  assur- 
ance and  certainty.  Now,  when  a  religious  man 
says  concerning  the  fundamental  conceptions  of  reli- 
gion, "O,  I  know  these  things  are  true;  I  have  a 
profound  feeling  of  certainty  in  regard  to  them; 
I  cannot  doubt  these  things,"  and  so  on,  he 
seems  to  be  giving  expression  to  some  very  solid  cer- 
tainty. Utterances  like  these  are  often  taken  as  of 
high  value.  They  are  generally  called  appeals  to 
experience  and  are  commonly  supposed  to  be  a  valid 
criterion  of  truth.  But  a  moment's  reflection  shows 
us  that  the  appeal  is  not  to  experience  but  only  to  one 
element  of  experience,  namely,  to  feeling.  The  man 
feels  that  these  things  are  true.  Now,  we  would  not 
underestimate  the  religious  value  of  feeling,  but, 
taken  alone,  apart  from  reason  and  from  the  prac- 
tical test  of  moral  values  in  the  outcome,  feeling  is 


KNOWLEDGE,  BELIEF,  FAITH  99 

generally  worthless  as  a  standard  of  validity.  Indeed, 
the  feelings  may  be  worse  than  worthless  when  ap- 
pealed to  alone,  for  in  the  absence  of  enlightened  rea- 
son they  may  lead  to  outcomes  positively  vicious. 
Highly  immoral  acts,  such  as  the  burning  of  heretics, 
have  been  performed  in  the  name  of  religious  devo- 
tion. The  feeling  of  the  wretches  who  did  such  things 
was  probably  that  they  were  acting  according  to  the 
will  of  God. 

Then,  again,  if  I  am  to  be  allowed  to  urge  the 
strength  of  my  feelings  as  a  valid  standard  for  the 
truth  of  my  religious  beliefs,  what  of  the  man  who 
does  not  share  in  my  feelings  and  holds  different  be- 
liefs? Surely,  my  subjective  certainty  cannot  be 
urged  as  authority  for  him.  But  if  we  must  admit 
that  individual  feelings  are  no  valid  basis  of  religious 
certainty,  may  we  not  urge  that  the  great  universal 
feelings  of  the  human  heart  certainly  are?  The  word 
"experience"  may  be  used  with  reference  to  individ- 
uals, and  it  may  also  refer  to  the  way  in  which  great 
religious  values  have  been  established  as  the  net  result 
of  the  experiences  of  countless  thousands  who  have 
believed  and  trusted  and  left  their  contributions  to 
the  great  common  legacy  of  humanity's  faith.  In  this 
broad  sense  I  think  we  may,  indeed,  urge  experience 
as  the  ground  of  religious  authority.  And  the  way  in 
which  the  great  religious  ideas  have  determined 
moral  outcomes  would  lead  us  to  acknowledge  expe- 
rience in  this  wider  sense  as  a  valid  ground  of  reli- 
gious authority.  But  we  shall  return  to  this  matter 
of  the  corroboration  of  experience  later. 

The  Nature  of  Belief.  And  now,  having  suggested  a 
preliminary   meaning  for  knowledge,   we  must  ask 


100    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

about  belief.  What  is  belief  and  how  do  knowledge 
and  belief  differ?  No  one  will  deny  that  a  religious 
man  is  perfectly  justified  in  saying,  "I  worship  God 
because  I  believe  that  God  exists,"  or,  "I  believe  that 
when  I  have  prayed  to  God  responses  have  come."  A 
belief  is  the  acceptance  of  a  thing  as  true  on  grounds 
which  seem  adequate  to  the  person  holding  the  belief. 
It  follows  that  the  grounds  of  belief  which  may  seem 
perfectly  adequate  to  one  will  seem  insufficient  to 
another.  The  range  of  one's  knowledge  will  deter- 
mine the  grounds  of  one's  beliefs.  Thus,  the  man  who 
is  but  little  acquainted  with  the  laws  of  nature  or  the 
processes  of  the  human  mind  will  often  assign  very 
different  grounds  for  occurrences  than  the  man  who 
has  extensive  knowledge  in  these  fields.  But  the 
grounds  which  the  man  of  very  limited  knowledge 
assigns  he  believes  to  be  adequate.  A  widening 
knowledge  may  cause  him  to  feel  dissatisfied  and 
abandon  his  earlier  explanations,  and  search  for 
others.  Our  beliefs,  then,  are  in  a  sense  special  to  us. 
We  take  them  for  true ;  that  is,  if  we  are  intellectually 
honest,  we  feel  a  reasonable  degree  of  assurance  that 
they  do  interpret  reality.  We  see,  then,  that  the 
degree  of  certainty  one  feels  concerning  his  beliefs 
may  be  very  high  and  still  the  belief  may  be  badly 
founded,  for  with  larger  insight  he  would  perceive  the 
inadequacy  of  the  grounds  upon  which  his  belief  rests. 
It  appears,  then,  that  the  feeling  of  assurance  which 
a  person  may  have  that  his  beliefs  are  true  cannot  be 
accepted  as  a  standard  for  valuation  in  the  absence 
of  other  reasons  for  maintaining  their  truth.  This 
we  have  already  seen. 

Religion  Claims  Knowledge.     But  not  only  does  the 


KNOWLEDGE,  BELIEF,  FAITH  101 

religious  man  say  "I  believe" ;  he  says  "I  know."  And 
he  will  insist  that,  when  he  says  he  knows,  he  means 
actual  knowledge.  He  means  that  his  religious  con- 
ceptions afford  him  not  only  satisfying  assurances  of 
certainty,  but  that  his  certainty  rests  upon  a  veritable 
apprehension  of  truth.  He  would  say,  "I  know  these 
things  because  they  are  true."  The  religious  believer 
would  protest  against  the  statement  that  his  knowl- 
edge involves  simply  a  relative  content  and  would 
urge  that  it  has  a  universal  validity. 

We  reach  the  heart  of  the  matter  here.  And  the 
all-important  question  is  whether  this  claim  for  the 
validity  of  religious  knowledge  can  be  sustained  in 
philosophy  of  religion,  where  we  are  required  criti- 
cally to  examine  the  nature  and  content  of  our  funda- 
mental religious  ideas.  This  brings  us  back  again  to 
a  consideration  of  knowledge.  We  ask,  then,  whether, 
besides  religious  faith  and  religious  belief,  there  is, 
indeed,  religious  knowledge;  in  other  words,  does  cer- 
tainty concerning  the  world  of  spiritual  realities  rest 
upon  the  same  foundations  in  experience  as  certainty 
concerning  the  world  of  objective  reality  about  us? 
Or,  if  we  admit  that  religious  certainty  does  not  rest 
upon  the  same  foundations  in  experience  as  our  ordi- 
nary knowledge,  does  it  ground  itself  in  such  elements 
and  factors  in  experience  as  bring  full  assurance  that 
our  religious  thought  interprets  reality?  It  must  be 
carefully  noted  that  the  validity  of  religious  knowl- 
edge is  involved  in  the  validity  of  knowledge  in  gen- 
eral. If  our  discussion  is  to  be  thorough,  we  must 
take  up  the  latter  question  first  and  show  how  we 
gain  certainty  that  the  mental  processes  which  yield 
us  our  general  knowledge  are  valid  for  reality.    Per- 


102    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

haps  we  may  then  see  that  the  differences  between  the 
grounds  of  valid  knowledge  in  general  and  of  religious 
certainty  are  not  nearly  so  great  as  is  commonly 
supposed. 

Analysis  of  Knowledge.  We  must  therefore  attempt 
a  brief  inquiry  into  those  processes  of  the  mind 
which  we  feel  sure  yield  us  knowledge  of  reality. 
The  simplest  form  in  which  knowledge  emerges  is  in 
the  judgment.  A  judgment  is  the  affirmation  of 
certain  relations  ( matters  of  agreement  or  difference ) 
between  two  or  more  of  our  ideas.  Thus  we  see  a 
stove  and  do  not  know  that  it  is  hot.  We  approach  it 
or  touch  it.  There  are  now  two  ideas  both  of  which 
have  arisen  through  sensation — that  of  the  stove  and 
the  perception  of  heat.  The  mind  unites  them  in  a 
judgment,  and  the  judgment  is  expressed  in  the  words 
"The  stove  is  hot."  We  may  go  further  and,  without 
being  anywhere  near  the  stove  or  seeing  it  at  all, 
know  that  there  is  a  fire  in  it.  This  knowledge  may 
be  based  upon  a  simple  process  of  reasoning,  the  data 
for  which  wTe  gained  in  sense-perception.  Perhaps 
as  we  approached  the  house  we  saw  smoke  issuing 
from  the  single  chimney,  and  we  know  that  some  one 
has  built  a  fire  in  the  stove.  Through  inference,  then, 
we  may  affirm  relations  between  objects  of  our  percep- 
tion. We  gain  knowledge  then  (1)  through  percep- 
tion, (2)  through  an  act  of  the  reason  based  upon 
data  given  in  perception,  and  (3)  through  a  kind  of 
direct  perception  of  a  simple  truth  of  reason.  This 
last  is  knowing  what  is  called  the  "self-evident." 
Stating  these  specifications  of  knowledge  in  other 
words,  we  may  say  that  we  have  a  degree  of  certainty 
amounting  to  knowledge  (1)  of  that  which  is  imme- 


KNOWLEDGE,  BELIEF,  FAITH  103 

diately  given  in  experience,  (2)  of  that  which  may 
be  proved  through  a  process  of  logical  inference  from 
data  given  in  experience,  (3)  of  that  which  is  self- 
evident. 

That  these  are  proper  designations  of  knowledge 
will  be  generally  agreed  to.  But  the  question  is 
important  whether  this  is  all  there  is  of  knowledge. 
If  so,  then  we  shall  have  to  deny  to  the  religious  con- 
sciousness the  possession  of  any  knowledge  in  a  proper 
sense.  For  it  is  very  sure  that  the  object  of  our  wor- 
ship and  the  fundamental  facts  of  our  religious  con- 
sciousness are  not  objects  of  knowledge  in  the  sense 
that  they  are  known  in  any  of  the  three  ways  speci- 
fied. But  is  there  good  reason  why  we  should  limit 
knowledge  in  this  fashion?  Are  there  not  some 
matters  concerning  which  we  have  a  high  degree  of 
certainty  which  cannot  be  included  in  the  three  speci- 
fications just  enumerated?  Let  us  see.  Few  would 
care  to  deny  that  the  degree  of  certainty  we  can  feel, 
for  example,  about  the  reliability  of  an  old  friend 
whom  we  have  known  for  years  does  not  amount  to 
knowledge.  At  any  rate,  we  act  upon  the  feeling  of 
certainty  in  the  case  of  our  friend  in  precisely  the 
same  fashion  as  we  do  upon  the  most  solid  items  of 
our  sense  experience.  If  the  certainty  we  have  con- 
cerning our  old  friend  were  simply  a  matter  of  the 
feelings,  we  might  question  its  right  to  the  title  of 
knowledge.  But  surely  it  involves  the  reason  as  well. 
We  might  apply  the  threefold  test  of  knowledge  al- 
ready suggested  to  many  other  matters  concerning 
which  we  feel  the  highest  degree  of  certainty  without 
justifying  them  as  knowledge.  Thus  for  example, 
while  suffering  from  an  acute  attack  of  speculative 


104    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

logic,  we  might  claim  that  we  do  not  "really  know" 
whether  spring  will  ever  come  again,  for  the  assur- 
ance is  not  given  us  in  sense  experience;  nor  is  the 
matter  capable  of  proof  (except  indeed  by  analogy, 
which,  alas,  fails  to  give  full  demonstration)  ;  nor  is 
it  by  any  means  self-evident.  While  in  this  frame  of 
mind  we  might  say  that  we  cannot  know  but  can  only 
believe  that  spring  will  come.  But,  recovering  from 
the  attack,  we  would  probably  say,  as  everybody  else 
does,  that  we  do  know  spring  will  come  again. 

From  this  it  would  appear  that  we  often  do  act  upon 
the  assumption  that  (1)  matters  given  in  sense  expe- 
rience, (2)  logically  provable,  or  (3)  self-evident  in 
the  nature  of  reason,  are,  after  all,  not  all  there  is  to 
knowledge.  That  these  are  three  well-tested  pathways 
to  the  heights  of  certainty  all  will  agree.  But  are  we 
called  upon  by  any  sound  reason  to  conclude  that 
there  are  no  other  pathways?  Of  course  there  is 
nothing  to  forbid  anyone  from  setting  up  these  three 
specifications  and  declaring  them  to  be  the  limits  of 
knowledge.  But  all  this  can  mean  is  that  notice  is 
hereby  served  that  everything  beyond  will  be  named 
belief  and  not  knowledge.  But,  after  all,  what  has 
been  done  more  than  to  mark  off  two  logical  classifi- 
cations and  then  give  directions  as  to  which  of  our 
mental  furniture  shall  be  put  into  the  one  and  which 
into  the  other?  But  we  repeat  that  the  real  issue  is 
not  the  maintenance  of  certain  logical  boundaries 
between  knowledge  and  belief,  but  the  attaining  a 
degree  of  certainty  which  emerges  as  the  result  of  our 
own  ideas  not  only  by  way  of  formal  reason  but  in  the 
practical  experiences  of  our  personal,  that  is,  our 
social  life.    Who  has  the  authoritv  to  tell  us  that  we 


KNOWLEDGE,  BELIEF,  FAITH  105 

may  not  take  as  true  whatever  brings  us  a  high 
degree  of  practical  assurance  and  cannot  be  shown  to 
be  inconsistent  with  truths  alrealy  accredited? 

But  we  must  keep  up  the  search  for  a  standard  of 
validity  in  our  knowledge.  Concerning  knowledge 
of  that  which  is  self-evident  there  is  little  or  nothing 
to  be  said.  The  feeling  of  certainty  emerges  at  once 
as  a  kind  of  simple  resultant.  But  when  we  begin 
to  talk  about  knowing  objects  because  they  are 
immediately  given  in  perception  we  may  find  that 
the  apparent  simplicity  of  the  process  of  knowing 
things  in  this  fashion  turns  out  to  be  highly  complex. 
And  after  we  have  traced  it,  probably  Ave  shall  not 
have  the  naive  feeling  that  we  perceive  reality 
directly.  We  learn  from  psychology  that  when  we 
perceive  an  object  all  that  comes  to  us  from  the 
object  itself  is  a  certain  form  of  activity  which 
serves  as  a  stimulus  or  excitation  to  our  minds.  In 
the  case  of  vision  it  is  various  shades  of  light.  The 
physicist  assures  us  that  when  light  rays  fall  upon 
the  retina  of  our  eyes  it  is  really  an  impinging  of  an 
intensely  rapid  vibration.  He  gives  us  the  number  in 
trillions  per  second  for  those  various  degrees  of  exci- 
tation which  the  mind  interprets  as  different  shades 
of  color.  It  will  be  noted  that  the  vibrations  which 
reach  the  retina  go  no  farther.  It  is  some  sort  of 
stimulus — molecular  motion  we  are  assured — which 
passes  along  the  soft  threadlike  nerves  to  the  brain. 
And  on  receipt  of  this  stimulus  we  think.  There  is 
always  an  exact  correspondence  between  what  we 
think  and  the  particular  stimulus  on  the  occasion  of 
which  the  thought  arises.  We  say  "always,"  but 
should  qualify  it  by  the  phrase  "under  normal  condi- 


106    FOUNDATIONS  OP  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

tions  of  consciousness  and  nerve  sensitiveness." 
Fever,  color-blindness,  and  other  pathological  con- 
ditions cause  the  mind  to  render  false  interpretations 
with  the  result  that  the  ideas  arising  in  consciousness 
are  illusion  and  error. 

But  now  it  must  be  noted  that  the  thought  in  the 
mind  is  totally  different  from  the  object  from  which 
the  excitation  came.  All  the  old  conceptions  of  "im- 
ages" being  formed  in  the  mind,  and  so  the  knowledge 
of  the  object  emerging,  are  uncritical.  So  are  all 
ideas  of  the  "impressing"  of  the  mind  by  objects. 
Knowledge  could  never  arise  in  this  fashion.  From 
the  standpoint  of  psychological  experience,  all  we  can 
say  is  that  constant  and  varied  stimulus  comes  to  the 
mind  through  the  sense  organs.  This  stimulus  is 
motion  in  various  forms,  without  our  physical  organ- 
ism, and  nerve  excitation  of  various  sorts  within  our 
physical  organism.  That  certain  changes  in  the  mole- 
cular structure  of  the  brain  take  place  as  thoughts 
are  born  we  may  well  believe.  Here,  then,  is  a  con- 
stant stream  of  sensations  taking  place  in  the  mind. 
They  become  perceptions  of  objects  only  by  virtue  of 
a  considerable  activity  of  the  mind  which  creates 
them  such.    How  now  is  knowledge  to  emerge? 

The  Growth  of  Knowledge.  A  mere  series  of  sensa- 
tions can  never  become  the  knowledge  of  things. 
Each  sensation  occurs  and  is  ended  and  is  followed 
by  another.  Knowledge  comes  only  when  the  con- 
scious subject  (which  is  not  the  series  of  sensations 
but  which  holds  them  in  consciousness)  recognizes 
the  sensations,  and  interprets  them  with  certain 
thought  values.  The  result  is  the  formation  of  ideas. 
These  ideas  are  perceptions  and  they  give  that  simple 


KNOWLEDGE,  BELIEF,  FAITH  107 

rudimentary  knowledge  of  things  which  we  call  per- 
ceptual knowledge.  But  the  experience  merely  of 
particular  things  can  never  give  us  a  knowledge  of 
the  world.  To  know  the  order  of  reality  about  us  we 
need  to  build  up  an  organized  body  of  knowledge. 
How  is  this  done?  On  the  basis  of  the  perception  of 
its  objects,  the  mind  now  establishes  various  relations 
among  its  particular  perceptions.  It  recognizes  sim- 
ilarities and  differences,  groups  its  ideas  and  creates 
class  ideas  which  stand  for  many  similar  objects. 
These  are  the  concepts  of  psychology,  the  universal 
terms  of  logic.  With  the  general  or  universal  ideas 
the  mind  interprets  the  constant  flow  of  particular 
perceptions,  ever  seeking  to  discover  new  relations 
among  its  ideas.1 

But  in  all  this  we  have  only  an  order  of  thought, 
We  know  now  that  knowledge  is  not  something  given 
to  us  from  without  but  something  built  up  from 
within  by  the  constructive  activity  of  the  mind  itself. 
This  activity  of  the  mind  goes  on  in  accordance  with 
certain  fundamental  principles  which  lie  in  the  very 
nature  of  the  reason.  These  are  the  so-called  cate- 
gories. It  is  immaterial  whether  we  say  they  are 
postulates  or  whether  they  are  principles  developed  in 
the  evolution  of  rational  experience  in  the  early  years 
of  consciousness.  The  important  point  is  that  they 
are  the  forms  or  mental  principles,  in  accordance  with 
which  the  mind  in  mature  consciousness  builds  up 
knowledge  from  the  data  furnished  in  perception. 

Through  this  very  brief  attempt  to  analyze  the 

»  But  it  is  to  be  noted  that  in  thus  forming  concepts  or  general  ideas  the  mind  goes 
beyond  what  is  given  in  experience.  The  process  is  that  of  abstraction  and  generaliza- 
tion. For  example,  from  our  particular  knowledge  of  individual  men  we  form  the 
idea  of  "man"  or  "mankind"  and  proceed  to  use  such  ideas  in  the  building  up  of  knowl- 
edge with  perfect  assurance  that  the  mental  processes  are  valid  for  reality. 


108    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

knowing  process  we  see  that  there  is  no  way  of  deduc- 
ing knowledge  from  that  which  is  not  the  product  of 
the  mind's  activity.  Thus  far  all  is  mental,  and  the 
question  may  well  be  asked,  How  does  thought  ever 
grasp  objects  in  the  world  of  reality  about  us?  From 
mere  thoughts  in  the  mind  how  are  we  to  get  to  objects 
in  the  world;  in  other  words,  how  are  we  to  know 
these  ideas  not  simply  as  mental  products  but  as 
objects  in  the  external  order? 

Evolution  of  Subject  and  Object.  In  order  to  answer 
this  question  it  will  be  necessary  for  us  to  note  some 
facts  in  the  evolution  of  conscious  experience.  In  full- 
developed  consciousness  knowledge  rests  upon  the 
clear  perception  of  the  difference  between  the  know- 
ing subject  and  the  object  or  thing  known.  But  this 
sharp  antithesis  between  subject  and  object,  while  it 
characterizes  all  mental  activity  in  our  fully  devel- 
oped consciousness,  does  not  extend  back  into  the 
early  beginnings  of  experience.  There  is  good  reason 
to  believe  that  as  our  conscious  life  begins  to  dawn  in 
the  earliest  years  of  childhood,  its  first  element  is  that 
of  sensation,  not  as  leading  immediately  to  the  percep- 
tion of  objects,  but  sensation  as  vague  feeling.  Then 
different  varieties  and  intensities  of  feeling  arise — 
differentiations,  to  use  the  current  word.  These  are 
the  basis  for  the  development  of  the  conscious  life. 
And  soon  certain  of  these  feelings,  now  fully  distin- 
guished as  differing  from  each  other,  are  associated 
by  the  mind.  Those  whose  content  is  most  vivid  and 
immediately  presented  are  grouped  and  in  time  are 
regarded  as  the  center  of  those  activities  which  pro- 
duce other  feelings.  This  is  the  beginning  of  a  con- 
sciousness of  self.     Consciousness  grows  gradually; 


KNOWLEDGE,  BELIEF,  FAITH  109 

but  in  time  a  certain  set  of  feelings  is  thus  referred 
to  the  self  and  contrasted  with  another  set  not  so 
referred.  In  this  way  the  fundamental  distinction 
between  the  self  and  the  not-self  is  born  in  the  in- 
creasing varieties  of  feeling.  The  sensitiveness  of 
the  physical  organism  determines  the  possible  variety 
of  feeling  and  the  increasing  differentiation  in  feeling 
marks  the  rise  in  the  level  of  the  conscious  life.  The 
critical  analysis  of  knowledge  which  has  been  current 
since  the  time  of  Kant  ordinarily  begins  with  full- 
fledged  experience.  It  has  been  assumed  that  the 
original  data  of  experience  are  a  lot  of  sensations. 
These  are  analyzed  and  found  to  be  the  work  of  the 
mind  based  upon  certain  excitation  received  by  the 
mind  through  the  senses.  Thus  knowledge  is  ex- 
pounded very  properly  as  the  product  of  the  mind's 
activity.  There  can  be  no  things  for  us  except  as  these 
things  have  first  given  rise  to  thoughts  in  the  mind. 
Unless  the  thoughts  are  born  in  the  mind,  the  things 
of  which  the  thoughts  are  assumed  to  be  mental 
counterparts  could  never  become  objects  of  our  knowl- 
edge. But  when  the  thoughts  are  born  in  the  mind, 
how  can  we  ever  transcend  our  experience,  which  is 
mental,  and  gain  certainty  that  the  thoughts  ade- 
quately and  truthfully  represent  an  order  of  objective 
reality?  Here,  then,  is  the  deadlock  which  must 
somehow  be  broken  if  our  knowledge  is  to  be  accred- 
ited as  valid  for  reality. 

The  standard  attempts  to  solve  this  great  problem 
are  familiar  to  the  student  of  philosophy.  From  the 
time  of  Locke,  Hume,  and  Kant  it  has  been  wrestled 
with  from  both  sides.  On  the  one  hand  the  attempt 
has  been  made  to  deduce  the  subject  from  the  object, 


110    FOUNDATIONS  OP  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

to  ground  the  order  of  thought  in  the  order  of  things. 
On  the  other  hand  it  was  sought  to  ground  the  objec- 
tive world  of  things  in  thought.  And  when  this  second 
attempt  was  confined  to  finite  thought  or  lost  itself 
in  impersonal  abstractions  like  "Thought"  and 
"Cosmic  Thought,"  the  outcome  was  the  same.  And 
that  outcome  was  either  to  fail  to  find  sufficient 
ground  for  the  reality  of  the  thing,  on  the  one  hand, 
or  for  the  validity  of  thought  on  the  other.  In  both 
cases  a  skepticism  resulted. 

It  would  take  us  too  far  into  the  field  of  meta- 
physics to  reason  our  way  step  by  step  to  the  solution 
of  this  problem.  And  if  we  did,  we  would  be  brought 
to  the  point  where  we  would  have  to  acknowledge  that 
there  is  absolutely  no  way  of  bringing  the  order  of 
thought  and  the  order  of  reality  together  on  the  plane 
of  reason  alone.  For  thought  cannot  transcend  itself. 
The  outcome,  by  the  pathway  of  reason  alone,  is  a 
general  skepticism,  or  the  inability  to  find  adequate 
grounds  for  the  validity  of  knowledge.  This  was  seen 
in  the  result  of  Kant's  Critique  of  the  Pure  Reason. 
But  there  is  a  vindication  of  knowledge.  We  can 
establish  its  validity.  There  is  a  way  to  satisfy  our- 
selves that  our  mental  experiences  which  yield  us  such 
subjective  certainty  are  an  essentially  truthful  repre- 
sentation of  an  objective  order  of  reality.  But  in 
order  to  find  that  way  we  may  have  to  give  up  some 
beliefs  for  which  we  have  entertained  great  respect — 
considerably  more  respect  perhaps  than  they  were 
ever  entitled  to. 

Logical  Demonstration  and  Knowledge.  And  the  first 
of  these  is  the  notion  that  real  knowledge  emerges 
only  as  the  result  of  demonstration  or  proof.    This  is 


KNOWLEDGE,  BELIEF,  FAITH  111 

a  superstition  of  the  intellect,  and  the  sooner  we  are 
clear  of  it  the  better.  The  plan  of  doubting  every- 
thing which  cannot  be  cogently  inferred  according  to 
the  laws  of  logic  doomed  Descartes  to  an  exceedingly 
narrow  area  of  certainty,  and  it  will  confine  us  in  like 
manner  if  we  let  it.  It  is  practically  abandoned  in 
all  fruitful  scientific  thinking.  True,  it  applies  in 
mathematics  and  wherever  we  deal  with  abstract 
values.  But  as  soon  as  we  begin  to  build  up  our 
knowledge  of  an  order  of  objective  reality  we  have  to 
abandon  it.  The  finest  triumphs  iu  scientific  think- 
ing have  come  from  a  use  of  the  imagination,  from 
splendid  ventures  into  regions  where  thought  could 
never  go  had  it  not  forsworn  loyalty  to  merely  formal 
logic.  The  hypothesis  put  forward  at  first  as  an  act 
of  intellectual  faith,  under  the  slow  revelations  of 
reality  in  experience  begins  to  afford  the  certainty 
which  deserves  the  name  knowledge.  And  if  it  does 
not  do  this,  it  is  erelong  discarded  as  no  longer  of 
value.  Its  validity  or  worthlessness  is  in  time  vindi- 
cated by  the  practical  logic  of  life. 

Assumption  and  Knowledge.  Then,  too,  we  must  be 
willing  not  only  to  discard  the  hoary  superstition 
about  knowledge  and  logical  proof,  but  we  must  see 
the  absolute  need  of  making  some  great  assumptions. 
These  will  furnish  the  only  emergence  from  the  sub- 
ject-object dilemma.  They  themselves  will  find  ample 
justification  in  the  fact  that  without  them  there  can 
be  no  accrediting  of  any  of  our  knowledge  as  valid  for 
reality.  These  assumptions  are  such  as  the  following : 
First,  that  even  though  our  senses  do  deceive  us  at 
times,  yet,  on  the  whole,  they  are  to  be  trusted,  for 
they  do  give  us  reliable  data  from  a  great  order  of 


112    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

objective  reality,  which,  though  known  only  through 
our  thought,  is  not  the  product  of  our  thought. 
Second,  that  this  great  order  of  objective  reality  is  a 
rational  order.  We  assume  this  simply  because  we 
know  that  we  know  it;  and  because  we  know  it  we 
conclude  that  it  is  knowable,  that  is,  capable  of  being 
grasped,  and  to  some  degree  represented  and  inter- 
preted by  our  rational  thinking. 

This  assumption  seems  natural  and  inevitable  in 
view  of  the  fact  that  in  the  evolution  of  self -conscious- 
ness the  world  of  things  is  at  first  presented  only  in 
feeling  and  then  in  simple  sense  perception.  The  per- 
ception of  qualities  of  things  and  the  distinction  be- 
tween the  knowing  subject  and  known  object  emerges 
late,  after  our  conscious  life  has  developed  to  the 
higher  levels.  These  are  the  great  assumptions,  postu- 
lates— call  them  what  you  will — which  we  simply  have 
to  accept  as  true  before  we  can  go  on  to  such  a  discus- 
sion of  our  subjective  experience  as  will  lead  us  any- 
where in  establishing  its  validity  for  objective  reality. 
The  simple  truth  is  that  we  know  that  we  know  some 
things.  Complete  skepticism  is  irrational  and  absurd, 
for  the  skeptic  must  at  least  know  that  he  does  not 
know.  No  one  urges  that  knowledge  is  complete.  We 
know  full  well  that  it  is  partial  and  fragmentary. 
Our  practical  problem  is  to  vindicate  the  kuowledge 
we  have.  And  what  shall  be  the  great  principle 
through  which  we  vindicate  it  or  establish  some  basis 
of  validity?  How  shall  we  know  the  truth — not 
merely  know  that  we  feel  certain?  For  knowing  the 
truth  means  that  our  thoughts  agree  in  the  main  with 
reality. 

Knowledge  Tested  by  an  Appeal  to  Values.    The  prin- 


KNOWLEDGE,  BELIEF,  FAITH  113 

ciple  by  which  we  may  test  the  validity  of  our  knowl- 
edge is  this :  How  does  our  knowledge  fit  in  with  life 
and  serve  the  great  practical  needs  of  life?  Instead 
of  talking  about  our  knowledge  satisfying  the  de- 
mands of  logical  completeness  or  revealing  "ultimate 
reality,"  let  us,  rather,  ask  how  our  knowledge  enables 
us  to  realize  the  great  rational  and  moral  values  of 
life.  Life  itself  affords  the  best  vindication  of  this 
principle.  The  correction  of  imperfections  in  plans 
and  errors  in  hypotheses  comes  through  the  gaining 
of  better  knowledge.  The  better  knowledge  corrects 
the  faults  and  errors.  The  knowledge  is  better  pre- 
sumably because  it  more  nearly  approximates  reality. 
The  knowledge  was  recognized  as  better  because  it 
more  adequately  met  some  practical  need  or  fulfilled 
some  end,  and  the  faulty  knowledge  was  shown  to  be 
faulty  in  the  testings  of  life,  and  out  of  life's  prac- 
tical interests  the  improved  knowledge  was  born. 
Hence  we  may  truly  say  that  there  is  a  revelation  of 
reality  in  life  itself.  But  the  manner  in  which  this 
revelation  of  reality  is  made  will  be  determined,  of 
course,  by  the  limitations  of  our  mental  life.  It  will  be 
in  terms  of  our  experience.  Just  as  there  is,  as  we  shall 
see,  a  necessary  anthropomorphism  in  thinking  about 
God  the  Ultimate  Personal  Reality,  so  it  appears  to 
be  necessary  that  what  we  shall  grasp  of  an  order  of 
reality  beyond  our  thought-world  shall  be  fixed  or 
determined  by  the  forms  and  limitations  of  our  mental 
experience  and  as  such  will  be  far  from  complete.  We 
cannot  transcend  the  finiteness  of  our  mental  expe- 
rience; and  if  our  finite  thought  is  to  grasp  reality 
at  all,  it  will  only  be  within  the  forms  of  our  expe- 
rience which  have  become  common  and  familiar  to  us, 


114    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

as  the  real  is  being  constantly  made  known  to  us  in 
our  personal  life. 

And  this  revelation  of  reality  in  life  itself  has  often 
been  overlooked  because  men  fancied  that  there  is 
only  one  faculty  for  the  perception  of  truth,  and  that 
one  the  reason.  But  man  not  only  reasons  but  he  feels 
and  wills.  And  while  there  is  good  cause,  as  we  have 
already  urged,  to  regard  the  individual  feelings  and 
volitions  with  suspicion,  yet  we  must  not  forget  that 
there  are  the  great  representative  and  universal  feel- 
ings not  of  particular  men  but  of  all  men.  These  have 
to  be  reckoned  with  in  any  estimate  of  great  life 
values. 

But  some  one  may  now  object  that  if  we  go  on  after 
this  fashion  we  shall  abandon  reason  as  a  test  of 
truth,  which  will  never  do  for  a  discussion  professing 
to  be  philosophy.  Is  the  test  of  practical  usefulness 
indeed  a  standard  of  validity?  The  answer  must  be 
that  it  certainly  is,  but  we  do  not  mean  that  it  is  the 
only  standard.  We  must  admit  that  reason  leads  us 
toward  truth  and  not  away  from  it.  And  any  belief 
which  is  logically  inconsistent  with  other  great  beliefs 
whose  validity  has  been  vindicated  by  their  value  and 
reasonableness  must  be  pronounced  without  proper 
foundation.  Reason  is  not  abandoned  or  neglected 
when  we  urge  the  test  of  practical  values  as  the  stand- 
ard of  validity,  for  we  shall  still  lean  heavily  upon 
rational  judgments  in  seeking  to  determine  what  the 
practical  values  really  are.  And  feeling  also  leads 
us  toward  the  truth  and  not  away  from  it.  And  by 
feeling  we  repeat  we  do  not  mean  some  particular 
emotion  of  the  individual,  but  the  great  common  and 
universal  feelings  of  the  human  heart. 


KNOWLEDGE,  BELIEF,  FAITH  115 

Knowledge  Vindicated  in  Experience.  The  conclusion 
toward  which  we  have  been  advancing  is  that  what- 
ever meets  the  demands  of  our  whole  experience — that 
is,  the  deepest  needs  of  our  entire  personal  life — must 
be  accepted  as  essentially  truthful  revelations  of  real- 
ity. And  experience  is  to  be  interpreted  not  by  its 
particular  or  individual  aspects  but  by  its  universal 
elements.  Reason  has  this  universal  character,  and  so 
have  the  great  common  feelings  of  humanity.  The 
practical  needs  of  the  moral  life  are  also  a  common 
factor  in  our  experience.  When  we  affirm  that  our 
knowledge  of  reality  is  vindicated  in  experience  we 
mean,  therefore,  that  we  must  accept  as  true  those 
convictions  which  (1)  are  felt  to  be  true,  (2)  which 
harmonize  with  our  rational  thinking,  and  (3)  which 
are  valuable  and  helpful  in  serving  the  great  moral 
ends  of  character  and  the  enrichment  of  our  personal 
life. 

In  view  of  these  considerations,  we  repeat  the  ques- 
tion propounded  earlier  in  the  discussion  and  ask  who 
has  the  authority  to  tell  us  we  may  not  take  as  ade- 
quate representations  of  reality,  affording  us  the 
highest  degree  of  certainty,  those  great  convictions 
born  out  of  life,  which  meet  the  universal  needs  of  our 
moral  being — those  convictions  which  are  demanded 
by  the  great  common  feelings  of  men,  and  which  rea- 
son shows  are  not  inconsistent  with  other  convictions 
that  vindicate  themselves  in  like  manner? 

In  view  of  these  considerations,  we  also  repeat  that 
it  is  possible  for  anyone  wishing  to  do  so  to  define 
knowledge  as  "that  which  is  self-evident  in  the  nature 
of  reason,  and  that  which  may  be  demonstrated  from 
data  given  in  experience,"  and,  having  so  defined  it, 


116    FOUNDATIONS  OP  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

serve  an  injunction  upon  us  from  using  the  word  other 
than  in  harmony  with  this  definition.  But  if  we  grant 
this  for  the  sake  of  the  argument,  it  would  only  follow 
that  we  have  agreed  to  name  a  great  deal  of  our 
mental  furniture  belief  and  very  little  of  it  knowledge. 
And  yet  the  degree  of  certainty  we  felt  would  not  be 
materially  impaired  by  this  verbal  performance.  The 
binomial  theorem  would  be  an  item  of  knowledge,  but 
the  conviction  of  the  Divine  Existence  and  the  doc- 
trine of  evolution  would  be  beliefs — but  pretty  well 
grounded  beliefs,  by  the  way — and  beliefs  affording  a 
considerable  degree  of  assurance  of  the  truth. 

Knowledge  and  Belief — Conclusions.  Let  us  in  conclu- 
sion gather  up  some  of  the  significant  points  which 
our  discussion  has  yielded. 

1.  We  conclude  that  there  are  no  hard-and-fast 
boundaries  between  knowledge  and  belief.  Little  is 
gained  by  seeking  to  maintain  them.  The  important 
matter  is  the  attaining  of  certainty  on  grounds  which 
will  stand  the  tests  of  our  rational  and  moral  expe- 
rience. 

2.  Valid  grounds  for  certainty  cannot  be  found  in 
individual  feeling,  though  the  great  common  and  uni- 
versal feelings  of  men  are  important  facts  and  must 
be  reckoned  with. 

3.  Reason  alone  cannot  vindicate  our  knowledge  of 
reality,  but  leads  to  a  practical  skepticism. 

4.  Our  convictions  are  vindicated  as  true  in  propor- 
tion as  they  are  seen  to  be  life  values.  There  is  a 
revelation  of  reality  in  our  experience,  though  it  is 
conditioned  by  the  forms  of  our  finite  consciousness. 

5.  Though  reason  and  feeling  are  not  sufficient  in 
themselves,  yet  we  need  both  these  elements  of  our 


KNOWLEDGE,  BELIEF,  FAITH  117 

experience  to  corroborate.  They  both  must  be  taken 
as  leading  us  toward  truth. 

6.  The  higher  degrees  of  certainty  grow  out  of  our 
total  experience.  Our  hopes  may  grow  into  beliefs, 
and  beliefs  gain  a  degree  of  certainty  wThich,  whether 
we  call  it  knowledge  or  not,  brings  deep  assurance 
that  they  are  true  and  reveal  the  Infinite  Reality. 
This  verification  in  experience  comes  through  life. 
We  live  by  such  assurance  as  we  have  that  our  deep 
convictions  of  God  and  his  relation  to  us  are  the 
eternal  truth,  and  in  experience  also  the  assurance 
deepens.  On  the  higher  levels  of  certainty  the  soul 
needs  no  outward  or  material  witness  for  the  real- 
ity of  the  things  of  the  spiritual  life.  None  is  pos- 
sible. Thus  we  may  come  to  know  God  by  a  direct 
communion  of  spirit  with  Spirit.  This  certainty  is 
not  reached  by  rational  thinking,  nor  is  it  wholly 
verified  in  that  way.  It  grows  and  generally  comes 
along  after  the  soul  has  earnestly  striven  to  know 
God.  Concerning  it  but  little  can  be  said  in  the  way 
of  philosophical  explanation.  It  is  an  experience 
of  the  inner  life,  and  as  an  experience,  its  value  can 
be  known  only  as  one  enters  into  it.  It  was  in  some 
such  sense  as  this  that  Paul,  at  the  close  of  a  life  in 
which  the  certainty  of  God's  presence  had  been  deep- 
ening as  the  years  fled  on,  said,  "I  know  him  whom 
I  have  believed." 

Faith.  In  a  very  true  sense  there  is  an  element  of 
faith  in  all  our  knowledge.  We  feel  certain  that  we 
can  and  do  know  reality.  We  believe  with  confidence 
that  there  is  a  revelation  of  reality  in  experience,  and 
that  those  deep  convictions  which  prove  themselves  to 
be  important  values  in  our  intellectual  and  moral  life 


118  FOUNDATIONS  OP  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

are  true.  Even  our  scieutific  knowledge  rests  upon  a 
substratum  of  faith. 

But  we  are  concerned  at  present  with  faith  as  a 
means  to  religious  knowledge.  While  the  word 
"faith"  is  often  used  in  the  sense  of  the  content  of  our 
beliefs,  yet  we  ought  to  distinguish  faith  from  belief. 
While  belief  is  the  holding  of  certain  convictions  as 
true  on  grounds  which  satisfy  our  rational  and  emo- 
tional nature,  faith  is  the  whole  personal  relationship 
of  the  soul  to  the  object  of  its  trust  and  love.  "Faith 
is  an  act  of  the  spiritual  and  self-conscious  person, 
who  affirms  the  religious  values,  and  God  the  Supreme 
Value,  to  be  essential  to  his  own  soul  and  to  the  mean- 
ing of  the  world.  It  is  a  movement  of  the  self,  con- 
scious and  free,  which  expresses  the  needs  and  states 
the  postulates  of  the  spiritual  life.  Faith  so  con- 
ceived is  neither  partial  nor  wavering,  but  speaks  of 
full  assurance  and  an  abiding  ideal."  2 

In  its  genesis  faith  comes  from  the  deep  needs  and 
demands  of  the  human  soul.  Men  seek  to  know  God, 
and  make  the  supreme  venture  of  faith,  because  they 
feel  their  helplessness  and  need.  It  is  not  because 
they  feel  they  must  comprehend  God,  but  because  of 
the  deeper  demands  of  their  inner  life  that  men  are 
impelled  to  search  for  the  Divine.  There  is  an  imper- 
sonal quality,  a  disinterestedness,  in  scientific  knowl- 
edge. Men  seek  to  know  because  of  their  desire  to 
understand  the  universe,  but  religion  always  centers 
about  personal  needs  and  interests. 

We  note,  further,  that  religious  faith  is  claimed  by 
men  only  under  certain  conditions.  It  involves  an 
attitude  of  the  soul  toward  God — a  personal  relation- 


2  Galloway,  Philosophy  of  Religion,  p.  330. 


KNOWLEDGE,  BELIEF,  FAITH  119 

ship  expressing  itself  in  trust,  confidence,  submission, 
and  expectation.  This  attitude  is  the  necessary  ante- 
cedent, we  learn,  of  certain  experiences  of  the  inner 
life,  which,  so  far  as  we  can  discern,  would  not  have 
taken  place  had  it  not  been  for  the  preceding  act  of 
venture,  surrender,  and  trust  to  which  we  give  the 
name  faith.  To  this  act  there  is  response  which  comes 
in  the  form  of  an  experience  of  the  inner  life.  The 
form  of  this  experience  cannot  be  prescribed,  for  it 
varies  greatly  according  to  the  age,  training,  and 
temperament  of  the  person  experiencing  it.  But  its 
essential  content  is  much  the  same.  The  experience 
usually  results  in  a  feeling  of  spiritual  rest  and  con- 
fidence. The  person  believes  that  he  has  a  larger 
insight  into  God's  nature  and  will.  A  deep  desire  to 
respond  to  the  divine  love  and  conform  to  the  divine 
will  is  born,  and  this  desire  serves  as  a  motive  power 
in  the  attaining  of  higher  moral  ideals.  Religious 
men  have  confidently  believed  for  ages  that  such  an 
experience  of  the  inward  life  is  the  response  of  God  to 
their  faith. 

The  Certainties  of  Faith.  And  out  of  such  experiences 
of  the  inner  life  certainty  is  born.  It  is  hardly  neces- 
sary to  point  out  that  such  certainty  is  not  the  fruit 
of  reason,  and  therefore  is  not  verifiable  by  the  proc- 
esses of  demonstration  or  logical  proof.  There  is 
no  good  reason  why  we  should  not  call  such  certainty 
knowledge,  provided  we  remember  that  the  data  of 
experience  upon  which  it  rests  are  generally  those  of 
feeling  and  will  and  not  those  of  sense  perception. 
And  we  find  a  counterpart  of  such  knowledge  on  the 
higher  levels  of  personal  living.  Thus  when  one 
person  surrenders  himself  in  trust  to  another  in  a 


120  FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

close  friendship  a  knowledge  of  the  qualities  and 
sympathies  of  one's  friend  grows  not  as  the  result  of 
logical  thinking.  To  justify  our  absolute  confidence 
in  our  friend  by  processes  of  reason  might  prove  to 
be  quite  impossible,  and  yet  we  would  keep  on  affirm- 
ing that  we  knew  the  friend  as  perfectly  trustworthy 
for  all  that.  Some  one  will  urge  that  again  this  is  not 
properly  knowledge,  but  should  be  called  belief.  And 
in  answer  we  repeat  that  whether  we  use  the  one  term 
or  the  other,  the  degree  of  certainty  we  feel  is  the 
important  matter. 

After  all,  the  question  is  one  of  the  recognition  of 
real  values.  Friendship  means  trustworthiness,  and 
the  recognition  of  that  value  is  knowledge.  Such 
knowledge  comes  not  of  single  acts  of  the  reason  but 
is  a  kind  of  moral  resultant  of  a  great  deal  of  life- 
experience.  Of  other  values  we  may  be  very  sure. 
We  know  that  certain  masterpieces  in  literature,  art, 
or  music  are  of  deep  significance.  But  who  wishes  to 
debate  the  matter?  If  a  person  out  of  a  poverty  of 
emotional  as  well  as  rational  experience  cannot  see 
the  truth  and  beauty  of  the  masterpieces,  then  there 
is  nothing  to  say  except  that  such  knowledge  is  not 
his.  Life  itself — that  is,  experience — must  become 
richer  and  fuller  in  order  to  afford  the  needed  discern- 
ment. 

But  now  some  one  may  object  when  we  thus  seek  to 
ground  religious  knowledge  upon  personal  experience 
of  the  inward  life,  for  is  not  such  inward  experience 
a  variable?  How  can  we  secure  a  sure  and  steadfast 
foundation  when  we  thus  build  upon  the  shifty  ground 
of  individual  experience? 

In  answer  we  repeat  that  there  are  inward  expe- 


KNOWLEDGE,  BELIEF,  FAITH  121 

riences  which  are  particular  and  isolated  and  there  is 
inward  experience  which  is  practically  universal.  We 
are  speaking  of  the  great  common  experiences  of  the 
spiritual  life— those  which,  while  they  may  vary 
greatly  in  their  form,  are  essentially  identical  in  their 
content  or  meaning.  These  guarantee  the  spiritual 
community  of  humanity.  When  we  study  the  way  in 
which  Christian  faith,  for  example,  has  been  wrought 
out  in  the  lives  of  countless  men  and  women,  we  gain 
insight  into  this  vast  community  of  experience. 

Jesus  Christ  has  been  for  centuries  the  center  of  the 
affections  and  personal  loyalties  of  myriads.  And  the 
truths  revealed  in  historic  Christianity  have  been 
personally  appropriated  and  lived  by  those  who  have 
through  their  faith  become  a  part  of  the  mighty  spir- 
itual movement.  With  the  infinite  variety  of  detail 
there  is  a  vast  community  in  the  type  of  inward  expe- 
rience which  has  followed  Christian  faith.  And  from 
it  there  has  been  born  a  degree  of  confidence  and 
assurance  which  has  amounted  to  a  high  degree  of 
certainty.  And  in  this  deeper  verification  through 
personal  spiritual  experience,  the  words  of  religious 
faith,  "I  know  him  whom  I  have  believed,"  find  their 
profoundest  meaning. 

Recommended  Reading 
J.  Ward— The  Realm  of  Ends,  Lecture  XIX. 
A.  J.  Balfour — The  Foundations  of  Belief,  Part  IV. 
Francis  J.  McConnell — Religious  Certainty. 
Borden  P.  Bowne — Theory  of  Thought  and  Knowledge. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEA  OF 

GOD 

In  these  studies  we  are  attempting  to  set  forth 
some  phases  of  a  philosophy  of  Christianity.  It  need 
hardly  be  suggested  that  this  attempt  cannot  be  one 
in  which  we  shall  lay  any  claim  to  exhaustive  or  com- 
plete treatment.  We  must  content  ourselves  with  the 
less  ambitious  and  probably  more  useful  task  of  out- 
lining the  broad  fundamental  conceptions  of  the  Chris- 
tian revelation,  so  that  they  may  be  seen  to  be  in 
harmony  with  other  truth.  While  the  essential  teach- 
ings of  Christianity  are  few  and  may  be  stated  in  a 
brief  compass,  yet  they  are  of  the  deepest  significance. 
We  shall  seek  to  offer  such  exposition  of  these  teach- 
ings that  they  may  be  seen  to  be  in  rational  harmony 
with  other  great  truths  of  the  universe  which  have 
been  won  through  the  achievements  of  modern  science. 

The  teaching  of  Christianity  is  that  the  Eternal 
Reality,  the  ground  of  all  being,  is  a  Personal  Spirit, 
and  that  this  Divine  Personal  Spirit,  of  whose  infinite 
thought  and  will  all  things  are  manifestations,  is 
beneficent  and  kind,  sympathetic  and  loving  in  his 
attitude  toward  men.  Indeed,  so  tender  is  the  In- 
finite Spirit's  affection  for  mankind  that  we  can 
express  the  relation  in  human  speech  only  by  the  use 

of  the  word  "Father,"  which  stands  for  one  of  the 

122 


THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEA  OF  GOD         123 

closest  and  dearest  relationships  of  our  human  life. 
And,  further,  Christianity  teaches  that  this  Infinite 
Spirit— the  Eternal  God  who  stands  thus  in  this  rela- 
tionship of  love  to  men — makes  himself  known  in 
human  experience  and  has  been  manifested  in  Jesus 
Christ;  that  in  Christ  we  have  a  supreme  revelation 
of  this  loving  God,  and  that  through  Christ  as  the 
revealer  of  the  divine  love  and  mercy  men  may  enter 
into  spiritual  relations  with  the  Infinite  God. 

Christianity  and  Philosophy.  The  most  fundamental 
and  determinative  characteristic  of  any  religion  is 
its  conception  of  the  Divine.  And  while  we  have  here 
the  doctrine  of  God  taught  by  Christianity — a  doc- 
trine which  can  be  stated  thus  simply  and  practically 
— we  know  that  this  Christian  idea  of  God  has  not 
remained  unchallenged  by  philosophy.  It  must  be 
our  endeavor  so  to  set  forth  the  meaning  of  this  Chris- 
tian conception  of  the  Divine,  so  to  expound  the  vari- 
ous ways  in  which  God  has  been  and  is  revealing  him- 
self, that  the  essential  harmony  of  Christian  teaching, 
when  adequately  interpreted,  with  the  other  truths  of 
philosophy  and  science  may  be  seen.  Christianity  is 
not  a  philosophy,  but  Christianity  is  capable  of  being- 
interpreted  philosophically.  Truth  will  in  the  last 
analysis  satisfy  the  entire  personality  and  represent 
the  whole  of  experience.  This  means  that  our  con- 
victions will  find  their  accrediting  as  truth  in  the 
great  practical  values  of  our  moral  life  in  the  uni- 
versal feelings  of  humanity  as  well  as  in  rational 
reflection.  Philosophy  is  supposed  to  lead  us  to  truth 
by  way  only  of  the  logical  and  the  rational.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  that  is,  strictly  speaking,  impossible, 
as  we  have  seen.    Whenever  the  search  for  truth  has 


124    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

been  by  way  of  the  reason  alone,  the  outcome  has  been 
a  failure  to  find  adequate  grounds  for  knowledge  with 
consequent  skepticism.  Philosophy  needs  the  "prac- 
tical reason,"  and  in  the  "logic  of  life"  some  concep- 
tions reveal  their  truth  which  would  otherwise  forever 
remain  in  doubt.  All  this  modern  philosophic  thought 
has  abundantly  demonstrated.  And  if  philosophy, 
which  is  so  predominantly  rational  in  its  method, 
needs  the  other  elements  in  experience,  it  is  certain 
that  religion,  which  is  a  matter  of  feeling  and  moral 
conduct,  must  have  the  sanctions  of  rational  reflec- 
tion. And  after  ages  of  hostility  and  misunderstand- 
ing we  are  at  last  finding  a  better  basis  of  concord  for 
our  philosophy  and  our  religion.  Indeed,  there  ought 
to  be  no  discord.  Our  religious  no  less  than  our  phi- 
losophic certainty  rests  upon  the  deep,  underlying 
conviction  of  the  unity  and  harmony  of  all  truth.  For 
religion  to  attempt  to  ignore  philosophy  is  to  deprive 
herself  of  a  most  valuable  source  of  strength. 

Human  Thought  about  God  a  Gradual  Development. 
As  we  trace  the  growth  of  religion  we  must  not  forget 
that  we  are  studying  the  thoughts  of  men  concerning 
God.  When,  therefore,  we  discover  that  there  has 
been  a  progressive  development  of  the  conception  of 
God — an  evolution,  if  you  please,  of  that  fundamental 
religious  idea — we  must  not  fall  into  the  fallacy 
which  has  beset  the  thinking  of  many  good  people 
who  dread  the  word  "evolution,"  especially  when  it  is 
used  in  relation  to  religion.  These  persons  seem  to 
think  that  God  is  being  made  the  subject  of  the  evolu- 
tion. This  is  a  curious  misunderstanding,  and  when 
combined  with  the  erroneous  notion  that  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  various  forms  of  organic  life  excludes  the 


THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEA  OF  GOD         125 

idea  of  Divine  creation,  evolution  does  indeed  seem 
to  be  a  most  dangerous  doctrine.  But  this  misunder- 
standing clears  away  when  we  remember  that  there 
has  been  no  progressive  development  of  God,  but  only 
a  gradual  advance  in  men's  thinking  about  God.  The 
Eternal  God  is  "the  same  yesterday,  to-day,  and  for- 
ever." 

Begins  with  Primitive  Conceptions.  The  history  of  reli- 
aious  thought  is  the  record  of  men's  efforts  to  grasp 
something  of  the  nature  of  the  Divine  Being  and  to 
comprehend  his  relation  to  them.  In  the  childhood 
of  the  race  men  thought  of  their  gods  as  greater  than 
themselves  in  power,  yet  a  good  deal  like  themselves 
in  other  respects.  The  primitive  sacrifice  was  gen- 
erally a  gift  of  food.  By  some  early  peoples  the  food 
was  left  at  a  sacred  spot,  and  when  it  disappeared 
(being  devoured  by  wild  animals)  it  was  thought 
the  god  had  come  down  and  eaten  it.  Later  the  sacri- 
fice was  burned,  and  then  it  was  the  savor,  or  finer 
essence,  of  the  food  of  which  the  god  partook.  This 
idea  is  reflected  in  Gen.  8.  21  and  Ezra  6.  10.  Com- 
pare Ezek.  6.  13. 

Mythology.  Not  only  were  the  gods  thought  of  as 
having  an  appetite  for  food  but  also  having  the  lusts 
of  men.  The  idea  of  divinities  having  sexual  relations 
with  human  beings  appears  in  many  primitive  reli- 
gions, notably  Egyptian,  Greek,  and  Early  Semitic1 
(see  Gen.  6.  1  and  2).  Jealousy  and  rage  were  very 
commonly  attributed  to  gods.  The  mythologies  of 
Greece  and  Rome  afford  ample  illustration.    See  also 


1  Instances  from  Greek  mythology  are  numerous,  for  example,  Zeus  and  Leda. 
The  male  god  usually  appeared  as  an  animal.  For  a  Semitic  instance,  Ishtar  and 
Gllgamish  may  be  cited  (see  Jastrow'a  Religion  of  the  Babylonians  and  Assyrians, 
p.  481ff.). 


126    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

the  strange  interpolation  Exod.  4.  24.  In  Gen.  11.  5 
Jehovah  is  represented  as  coming  down  to  see  how  the 
tower  of  Babel  is  getting  along.  In  Exod.  10.  20  and 
27;  11.  10,  etc.,  he  is  represented  as  hardening  the 
heart  of  the  Egyptian  king  and  then  sending  fresh 
plagues  to  compel  him  to  free  the  Israelites. 

Here  we  find  the  ascription  of  various  human  limita- 
tions and  imperfections  to  the  divine.  This  pervades 
all  mythology,  and  is  present  to  a  degree  in  the  Old 
Testament  records  of  the  early  times.  The  Hebrew 
writers,  it  must  be  remembered,  had  no  idea  of  cause 
and  effect  similar  to  that  in  modern  thought.  But 
everything  which  appeared  unexplainable  was  as- 
cribed directly  to  Jehovah.  The  obstinacy  of  Pharaoh 
seemed  to  the  Hebrew  Chronicler  inexplicable  upon 
any  other  supposition  than  that  Jehovah  had  "hard- 
ened his  heart."  * 

Anthropomorphism.  Anthropomorphism  is  the  name 
given  to  this  way  of  conceiving  the  divine  in  terms  of 
our  human  life.  This  word  comes  from  the  two  Greek 
words,  dvdponoq,  meaning  "human  being,"  and  iiop<prj, 
"form."  And  the  word  is  applied  to  all  thought  of 
God  which  conceives  him  in  the  form  or  relations  of 
human  experience.  It  will  be  seen  that  if  we  are  to 
think  of  God  at  all,  we  must  think  of  him  somehow  in 
terms  of  our  own  life.  The  reason  for  it  lies  in  the 
nature  of  our  thinking,  which  cannot  transcend 
human  experience.  We  say  that  "God  is  a  Spirit," 
but  the  idea  of  "pure  spirit"  is  vague  and  unreal  until 
a  content  of  meaning  is  given  to  it.  And,  of  course, 
the  meaning  must  be  drawn  from  our  human  expe- 
rience, for  it  can  come  from  nowhere  else. 

The  Lower  and  the  Higher.    In  primitive  peoples  expe- 


THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEA  OF  GOD         127 

rience  remains  wholly  upon  the  lower  levels  of  the 
material  and  physical.  Hence  in  all  primitive  reli- 
gions men  think  of  the  divine  in  the  terms  of  their 
own  crude  life.  Naturally,  this  means  the  ascribing 
of  human  imperfections  to  the  divine  beings.  This  is 
the  lower  anthropomorphism.  It  is  inevitable  among 
peoples  Avho  think  of  their  god  as  localized.  Along 
with  this  often  goes  a  rude  conception  of  the  divine 
as  existing  in  human  form.  And  we  see  the  gods 
depicted  as  men  of  heroic  size  and  of  great  strength. 
Vulcan  was  a  powerful  but  somewhat  deformed  black- 
smith. Mercury  was  lithe  in  figure  with  wings  on  his 
feet  which  lent  an  incredible  swiftness  to  his  move- 
ments. Of  course  there  is  symbolic  imagery  here,  but 
the  fact  remains  that  in  thinking  of  their  divinities 
early  men  pictured  the  divine  in  the  physical  forms  of 
the  human.  And  in  the  Old  Testament  we  read  of 
Jehovah's  forehead,  his  hand,  and  eye,  and  foot. 
Moses  is  not  permitted  to  behold  Jehovah's  face,  but 
may  look  at  his  "back  parts"  (Exod.  33.  23),  and  so 
on.  The  ancient  law  of  the  Decalogue  forbade  the 
making  of  any  images  or  pictures  of  Jehovah.  And 
this  one  fact  is  of  immense  significance  in  its  relation 
to  the  progress  of  Hebrew  thought  toward  an  ethical 
conception  of  God.  For  while  the  early  conception 
of  Jehovah  preserved  all  that  is  valuable  in  the  lower 
anthropomorphism,  it  paved  the  way  for  a  worthier 
conception  of  the  Divine  Being.  The  painters  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  even  as  far  down  as  the  Renaissance, 
were  in  the  habit  of  portraying  the  Almighty. 
Michael  Angelo  painted  God  as  an  elderly  man  with 
a  long  flowing  beard,  looking  down  on  the  world  from 
the  clouds.    Of  course  these  conceptions  are  outgrown 


128    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

when  men  learn  the  meaning  of  personal  spirit. 
Thinking  of  God  in  human  form  and  ascribing  to  him 
various  limitations  of  our  earthly  life  are  the  lower 
aspects  of  anthropomorphism. 

There  is  a  higher  anthropomorphism.  This  con- 
sists in  thinking  of  God  not  in  the  terms  of  the  phys- 
ical and  material  side  of  our  life,  not  in  ascribing  to 
him  human  limitations  and  imperfections,  but,  rather, 
conceiving  him  in  terms  of  all  that  is  highest  in  the 
moral  life  of  men.  When  we  ascribe  to  God  in  full- 
ness and  perfection  all  those  moral  virtues  which 
glorify  human  life,  we  have  truly  not  escaped  from 
anthropomorphism,  but  we  have  left  behind  those 
crudities  which  mark  the  lower  levels  of  human  think- 
ing about  God. 

Without  doubt  the  highest  conception  of  God  of 
which  the  human  mind  is  capable  is  that  which  is 
expressed  by  the  first  words  of  the  Lord's  prayer — 
"Our  Father."  What  does  this  mean?  It  means  that 
the  Infinite  God  stands  in  a  moral,  that  is,  a  personal, 
relation  to  us,  and  that  this  personal  relation  in- 
cludes all  those  tender  feelings  of  love  and  sympathy 
which  we  associate  with  the  paternal  relationship. 
The  word  "father"  means  provider  and  protector  in 
our  human  family  economy.  When  we  address  God 
with  the  words  "Our  Father,"  if  we  have  a  realization 
of  their  meaning,  we  affirm  our  faith  that  the  Infinite 
One  stands  in  the  closest  personal  relationship  to  us 
in  love  and  helpfulness.  This  too  is  anthropomor- 
phism, for  we  cannot  escape  the  human  molds  of 
thought,  but  it  is  anthropomorphism  of  a  lofty  kind. 

Comprehension  of  the  Divine  Possible  Only  in  Terms  of 
Human  Experience.    We  certainly  cannot  think  of  the 


THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEA  OP  GOD         129 

infinite  except  in  terms  of  our  finite  experience. 
When  we  aflflrm  that  God  is  a  Spirit  the  question  fol- 
lows, What  is  spirit?  The  answer  must  always  be  in 
terms  of  our  human  life.  The  highest  answer  makes 
use  of  the  moral  relationships  of  life,  not  simply  the 
physical  and  material  existences.  The  biblical  writers 
speak  constantly  of  the  spiritual  life.  They  seek  to 
make  real  the  inner  experiences  of  the  soul,  and  in 
doing  so  they  must  use  the  terms  of  the  sense  life. 
This  is  why  there  is  so  much  language  in  the  Bible 
which  must  be  interpreted  not  literally  for  what  it 
says,  but  logically  for  what  it  means.  For  example, 
the  apostle  John,  in  the  book  of  Revelation,  has 
written  a  wonderful  pen  picture  of  the  New  Jeru- 
salem. He  tells  us  of  streets  of  pure  gold !  There  is 
a  sea  of  glass  mingled  with  fire !  The  walls  of  the  city 
are  made  of  jasper  and  beautiful  jewels  of  all  sorts. 
The  city  is  twelve  thousand  furlongs  square !  What 
does  it  all  mean?  It  means  that  human  speech  is  here 
struggling  to  express  that  which  lies  beyond  the  range 
of  our  human  experience.  And  in  order  to  do  this  he 
must  talk  of  those  things  within  the  realm  of  our 
knowledge  and  experience  which  are  most  beautiful, 
rare,  and  valuable. 

The  apostle  must  needs  talk  of  gold  and  jasper  and 
opals  and  furlongs,  but  he  means  something  infinitely 
greater.  And  it  is  so  when  we  seek  in  the  words  of 
human  speech  to  express  some  conception  of  the  In- 
finite God.  We  would  not  have  our  thought  of  God 
lose  all  traces  of  the  human  molds  in  which  it  has 
been  cast.  For  this  would  be  to  take  from  us  those 
characteristics  of  the  Divine  which  keep  God  close  to 
us.     Verily,  the  incarnation  itself  is  a  gracious  con- 


130  FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

descension  of  the  Eternal  One  to  that  need  of  the 
human  mind  and  heart  to  think  of  him  and  to  love 
him  as  our  own. 

To  sum  up  then.  The  principle  underlying  all  an- 
thropomorphism is,  as  we  have  seen,  that  when  the 
human  mind  attempts  to  form  some  conceptions  of 
the  Infinite  it  is  found  to  be  impossible  to  transcend 
finite  experience.  It  is  necessary,  therefore,  that  we 
think  and  speak  of  the  Divine  in  terms  of  the  human. 
On  all  levels  of  culture  men  attribute  to  God  the  high- 
est ideals  of  which  they  are  capable.  On  the  lower 
levels  of  civilization  the  highest  ideals  of  men  are 
those  of  physical  power.  The  gods,  therefore,  are 
thought  of  as  endowed  with  extraordinary  strength. 
Before  any  well-developed  moral  ideals  had  emerged, 
men  thought  of  their  gods  as  living  a  kind  of  magni- 
fied material  existence.  They  must  travel  from  place 
to  place,  but  could  go  like  the  Valkyries  or  Hermes, 
with  incredible  swiftness.  They  must  eat  and  drink 
like  men,  but  in  Valhalla  they  drank  from  immense 
golden  flagons.  Among  the  Greeks  the  gods  ate  am- 
brosia and  drank  nectar. 

The  loftiest  moral  ideals  were  embodied  in  the 
thinking  of  the  Hebrew  people.  They  were  superior 
to  all  other  peoples  of  antiquity  in  their  conception, 
first,  of  the  unity  of  the  Divine  Being,  and,  second,  in 
the  moral  relations  which  they  thought  of  as  existing 
between  God  and  themselves.  But  even  on  the  plane 
of  moral  relationships  existing  between  God  and  men, 
human  thought  finds  its  range,  of  course,  only  within 
the  realms  of  finite  experience.  And  so  the  higher 
anthropomorphisms  are  still  ways  of  conceiving  God 
in  terms  of  human  life.    But  we  no  longer  find  the 


THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEA  OP  GOD         131 

crude  notions  of  the  lower  levels,  but  the  conception 
of  God's  nature  and  relation  to  men  is  conceived  in 
terms  of  all  that  is  noblest  and  best  in  human  life. 
But  it  will  be  noted  that,  however  advanced  the  idea 
of  God's  relation  to  men  becomes,  it  never  gets  beyond 
the  boundaries  of  human  experience.  We  who  are 
trained  under  the  Christian  idea  of  God  learn  the 
meaning  of  loyalty  and  sacrifice  and  devotion  on  the 
plane  of  finite  experience,  and  then  we  enlarge  the 
range  of  these  great  virtues  and  learn  to  think  of  the 
Eternal  God  as  related  to  us  in  a  fashion  not  essen- 
tially different  from  the  way  in  which  we  are  related 
to  each  other.  Truly,  "We  love  him  because  he  first 
loved  us,"  but  no  man  ever  learned  to  love  God  who 
had  not  first  learned  human  love  by  looking  into  a 
human  face — the  face  of  his  mother  in  the  days  of 
childhood  and  the  faces  of  others  in  later  years. 

This  means  that  we  first  come  to  know  God  and  to 
revere  and  love  him  not  through  any  strange  or  mys- 
terious revelations  of  himself  as  divine,  but  through 
the  ways  in  which  he  has  made  himself  known  in 
human  life.  Our  lessons  of  divinity  come,  therefore, 
from  an  experience  of  humanity.  It  is  always  so. 
The  early  disciples  knew  their  Master  first  of  all  as 
Jesus  of  Galilee,  who  walked  and  ate  and  slept  with 
them,  who  was  wearied  and  disappointed  and  abused 
and  cruelly  slain.  They  loved  him  as  their  own  in  the 
dear  fellowship  of  the  human  life.  Later  on  their 
knowledge  of  him  as  the  Divine  Lord  began  to  grow, 
but  it  was  on  the  basis  of  what  they  already  knew  of 
him  as  the  Teacher  of  Galilee  and  Judaea.  With  the 
fullest  acknowledgment  of  the  vast  difference  be- 
tween the  divine  and  the  human,  it  is  safe  to  say  that 


132  FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

the  revelations  of  the  divine  which  come  to  us,  and 
the  knowledge  of  the  divine  which  we  gain  thereby, 
will  come  by  way  of  some  of  the  experiences  of  our 
human  life. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  MEANING  AND  IMPLICATIONS  OF 
PERSONALITY 

The  conclusions  reached  in  the  last  chapter  bring 
us  face  to  face  with  the  problem  of  how  we  are  to 
think  of  God  and  of  his  relation  to  the  world,  both  the 
world  of  things  and  the  world  of  persons.  Theism 
teaches  that  God  is  a  Person.  But  what  is  a  person? 
Where  do  we  get  our  conception  of  what  a  person  is? 
The  answer  must  be,  From  our  experience  with  our- 
selves and  with  other  human  persons  in  the  various 
relationships  of  life.  In  other  words,  in  thinking  of 
the  Divine  Personality  we  must  begin  by  asking,  What 
is  the  meaning  of  human  personality? 

The  Fundamental  Elements  of  Personality.  We  say  that 
a  man  is  a  person.  The  content  of  that  idea  must  be 
explored.  Of  course  all  thought  of  material  form 
being  essential  to  personality  is  to  be  dismissed  as 
crude  and  uncritical.  Personality  means,  in  the  first 
place,  conscious  existence.  But  understanding  con- 
scious as  ability  to  feel,  this  applies  to  all  living  crea- 
tures. Conscious  must  therefore  mean  not  only  sensi- 
bility but  cognition — a  thinking,  not  simply  a  feeling 
intelligence.  But  we  have  not  yet  transcended  the 
brute  creation.  Why  is  a  man  a  person  and  a  dog  not 
a  person?  The  dog  surely  has  individuality,  that 
is,  a  certain  set  of  habits,  peculiarities,  and  traits 
which  make  him  the  particular  dog  he  is.    All  dogs 

133 


134    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

are  a  good  deal  alike  in  their  habits  and  instincts. 
We  say  it  is  their  canine,  or  dog,  nature.  But  in  addi- 
tion to  their  dog  nature  there  is  also  the  individuality 
which  can  be  recognized  on  acquaintance  with  a 
particular  dog.  But  when  we  come  to  man  we  find 
something  more.  The  man  too  has  his  traits  and 
habits  common  to  all  men — his  human  nature.  He 
has  also  the  traits,  habits,  and  tastes — physical  and 
mental — which  make  him  the  particular  man  that  he 
is.  This  is  his  individuality.  But  there  is  something 
else  the  man  has  which  we  have  no  good  reason  to 
believe  the  animals  have.  It  is  a  rational  conscious- 
ness, not  only  of  the  world  of  things  and  persons 
about  him,  but  of  himself  as  a  particular  existence 
apart  from  all  other  objects  of  his  consciousness,  botli 
things  and  conscious  beings.  This  we  call  selfhood, 
and  it  is  distinctive  and  unique. 

But  even  though  the  self  is  unique,  selfhood  is  a 
gradual  development  amid  the  social  relations  of  our 
human  life.  And  some  tracing  of  the  development  is 
possible.  The  mental  life  begins  on  the  low  plane  of 
feeling,  which  is  at  first  subrational.  From  this  low 
consciousness  the  first  beginnings  of  a  consciousness 
of  self  emerge.  This  consciousness  of  self  develops 
largely  from  the  fact  of  differences  in  feeling  and  from 
the  recognition  that  some  feelings  are  to  be  associated 
more  intimately  with  the  self  than  others.  Thus  the 
fundamental  distinction  between  the  self,  or  subject, 
and  the  nonself,  or  object,  emerges.1  And  if  the 
human  individual  exhibits  in  a  few  years  the  main 
features  of  a  mental  development  which  required  ages 


1  The  development  of  the  mental  life  from  an  evolutionary  point  of  view  iB  signifi- 
cantly treated  by  L.  T.  Hobhouse  in  bis  Mind  in  Evolution. 


PERSONALITY  135 

for  the  race,  then  consciousness  of  selfhood  is  the 
result  of  a  long  process  of  growth  in  which  the 
human  mind,  beginning  on  the  low  plane  of  instinctive 
feelings  and  impulses,  slowly  developed  a  full  self- 
consciousness.  The  factors  in  this  development  were, 
of  course,  the  constantly  increasing  activity  of  the 
mind  over  against  a  rational  and  social  environment. 
And  this  development  of  a  consciousness  of  self  is,  so 
far  as  we  know,  unique,  and  capacity  for  it,  as  well 
as  the  actual  attainment  of  it,  differentiates  man  from 
all  the  other  animal  creation. 

Personality  and  Freedom.  Thus  far  the  factors  essen- 
tial to  personality  are  fairly  indisputable.  We  must 
now  note  another  element,  which  is  self-determina- 
tion, or  freedom.  This  means  that  the  activity  of  the 
mind  in  thought  and  volition  is  not  wholly  determined 
by  causes  outside  of  the  mind.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
many  of  our  thoughts  and  acts  are  more  or  less 
mechanically  determined,  but  the  power  of  freedom, 
or  self-determination,  must  be  demanded  as  a  funda- 
mental and  indispensable  element  of  personality. 
This  brings  us  to  the  much-debated  question  of  mental 
and  moral  freedom.  It  is  one  of  the  greatest  questions 
of  philosophy.  While  it  is  an  old  question,  it  is  by 
no  means  outgrown.  Some  problems  become  obsolete 
because  of  the  change  of  life  conditions  out  of  which 
they  originated.  Not  so  with  this  question  of  free- 
dom. It  is  so  vital  and  fundamental  to  our  moral  life 
that  no  thorough  consideration  of  ethics  or  religious 
philosophy  can  be  offered  without  either  assuming  it 
or  tacitly  denying  it.  And  every  age  needs  a  restate- 
ment of  the  answer  to  such  a  great  problem  as  this. 
Its  tremendous  importance  in  our  present  inquiry 


136    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

must  be  our  reason  for  taking  it  up.  Of  course  it  is 
impossible  to  present  here  any  full  justification  of  the 
grounds  upon  which  we  believe  in  freedom.  We  must, 
however,  point  out  the  directions  in  which  may  be 
found  those  assurances  or  reasons  which  justify  us  in 
rejecting  all  doctrines  that  represent  our  thoughts  and 
acts  as  mechanically  determined  by  causes  external 
to  ourselves.  If  we  believe  in  freedom,  we  ought  to 
know  the  grounds  in  reason  upon  which  that  belief 
rests. 

Meaning  of  Freedom.  Putting  the  matter  in  familiar 
phraseology,  freedom  means  just  this,  that  you  and  I, 
under  normal  conditions,  can  act  without  our  acts 
being  necessitated  by  forces  above,  beyond,  or  apart 
from  us.  And  as  our  rational  activity  is  controlled 
by  our  motives,  it  means  that  we  have  some  part  in 
the  creation  of  our  own  motives.  We  speak  of  acts 
as  free,  and  a  moment's  reflection  shows  us  that  the 
free  act  must  have  proceeded  from  the  free  thought. 
Of  course  not  every  act  we  perform  is  preceded  by  an 
act  of  our  own  mental  initiative.  Most  of  our  acts 
are  more  or  less  determined.  They  may  be,  as  we  say, 
performed  mechanically  without  particular  thought. 
They  may  be  instinctive,  or  habitual,  and  they  often 
result  immediately  from  all  that  we  have  become 
through  previous  decisions  and  acts.  But  granting 
all  this,  freedom  means  the  power  of  doing  some  things 
on  our  own  initiative,  without  such  compulsion  of 
antecedents  that  the  act  is  necessitated  and  could  not 
be  otherwise.  After  we  have  acted,  a  consistent  de- 
terminist  must  believe  that  we  could  not  have  done 
otherwise  than  we  did.  The  advocate  of  freedom  must 
believe  that  we  could. 


PERSONALITY  137 

Meaning  of  Determinism.  The  denial  of  all  free  initia- 
tive in  our  mental  and  moral  life  is  known  as  deter- 
minism. This  doctrine  may  be  summed  up  in  a  few 
words  as  follows :  All  actions  which  appear  to  be  per- 
formed from  free  choice  are  the  results  of  motives, 
and  the  strongest  motives  determine  the  action.  A 
particular  act,  therefore,  takes  place  first  as  the  result 
of  the  appropriate  volition ;  but  the  volition  itself  has 
been  really  determined  by  the  nature  or  constitution 
of  the  individual  and  his  environment.  Motives  which 
spring  from  the  whole  physical  (and  mental)  situa- 
tion thus  act  and  react,  and  it  is  always  the  strongest 
motives  which  result  in  what  we  may  fancy  is  a  freely 
willed  act.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  not  a  little  cur- 
rent scientific  thinking  is  deterministic.  Science  aims 
more  and  more  at  an  all-inclusive  system.  Its  great 
generalization  is  the  universality  of  causal  connec- 
tion, and  this  causal  connection  is  conceived  in  me- 
chanical fashion  as  dynamic  determination.  Serious 
objections  to  this  are  not  met  so  long  as  this  principle 
of  mechanical  determination  was  applied  to  life  be- 
low the  level  of  the  human.  But  with  the  attempt  to 
apply  the  biological  principles  of  evolution,  in  con- 
nection with  the  mechanical  doctrine  of  the  conserva- 
tion of  energy,  to  human  life  with  its  vast  network  of 
moral  relations,  formidable  difficulties  emerged,  for 
as  soon  as  human  thought  and  conduct  were  brought 
under  the  sway  of  the  principle  of  mechanical  causa- 
tion, it  meant  that  our  thinking  and  willing,  and 
therefore  all  our  activity,  are  to  be  interpreted  in  ac- 
cordance with  this  principle ;  in  other  words,  that  hu- 
man activity  is  but  one  phase  of  the  cosmic  activity, 
and  all  is  determined  in  the  great  unbroken  chain  of 


138    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

mechanical  causation.  This  means  that  a  consistent 
and  thoroughgoing  naturalism  applies  the  principle  of 
the  conservation  of  energy  to  all  existence  and  no 
exception  is  made  of  what  we  call  the  moral  life. 
And  it  is  evident  that  belief  in  freedom  does  not  fit 
into  a  mechanical  view  of  the  universe  which  includes 
human  experience.  Freedom  must  therefore  be  dis- 
missed as  a  baseless  doctrine.  Haeckel  does  this,  and 
puts  the  denial  plainly  enough.  He  says :  "The  free- 
dom of  the  will  is  not  an  object  for  critical  scientific 
observation  at  all,  for  it  is  pure  dogma  based  on  an 
illusion  and  has  no  real  existence.  .  .  .  Each  act  of 
the  will  is  as  surely  determined  by  the  act  of  the  indi- 
vidual and  as  dependent  upon  the  momentary  condi- 
tion of  his  environment,  as  every  other  psychic  activ- 
ity." 

Weakness  of  Determinism.  There  are  several  very  seri- 
ous objections  to  this  view.  They  may  be  summed  up 
in  the  general  statement  that  any  deterministic  doc- 
trine consistently  applied  to  human  life  compels  the 
conclusion  that  our  acts  are  necessitated.  They  are 
not  consequences  of  our  mental  activity,  free  within 
certain  limits,  but  are  resultants  from  forces  beyond 
our  control.  Thus  in  no  degree  do  we  determine  our- 
selves, but  we  are  determined.  The  inevitable  out- 
come of  the  consistent  application  of  such  a  view  as 
this  to  human  life  is  to  destroy  the  fundamental 
grounds  of  reason  and  to  cancel  the  basis  of  moral 
responsibility.  Determinism  is  not  often  stated  with 
the  consistent  frankness  which  Haeckel  exhibits. 
Indeed,  there  is  a  good  deal  of  half-hearted  determin- 
ism in  which  attempts  are  made  to  maintain  the  doc- 
trine but  to  modify  its  effects  by  insistence  that  the 


PERSONALITY  139 

determinism  is  "inward"  and  not  "outward."  But 
all  attempts  to  point  out  an  essential  difference  be- 
tween a  dynamic  determination  "from  within"  and 
such  determination  "from  without"  have  ended  in 
failure.  This  is  for  the  reason  that  unless  determin- 
ism is  affirmed  as  absolute,  some  room  will  be  left 
for  free  self  initiative,  which  means  the  granting  of 
an  element  of  freedom.  This  a  consistent  scientific 
materialism  cannot  allow. 

Here  is  a  statement  of  mechanical  determinism 
which  has  the  virtue  of  being  consistent.  It  is  the 
summary  M.  Bergson  makes  of  the  doctrine  in  the 
terms  used  in  expounding  the  kinetic  theory  of 
matter:  "As  the  principle  of  the  conservation  of  en- 
ergy has  been  assumed  to  admit  of  no  exception,  there 
is  not  an  atom  either  in  the  nervous  system,  or  in  the 
whole  universe,  where  position  is  not  determined  by 
the  sum  of  the  mechanical  actions  which  other  atoms 
exert  upon  it.  And  the  mathematician  who  knew  the 
position  of  the  molecules  or  atoms  of  a  human  organ- 
ism at  a  given  moment,  as  well  as  the  position  and 
motion  of  all  the  atoms  in  the  universe  capable  of 
influencing  it,  could  calculate  with  unfailing  cer- 
tainty the  past,  present,  and  future  of  the  person  to 
whom  this  organism  belongs  just  as  one  predicts  an 
astronomical  phenomenon." 

This,  surely,  is  the  mechanical  doctrine  of  human 
life  pure  and  unadulterated.  But  on  this  view  it  must 
be  noted  that  the  material  points  of  which  it  is  alleged 
that  the  universe  is  composed  are  subject  solely  to 
forces  of  attraction  and  repulsion,  arising  from  these 
points  themselves  and  possessing  intensities  which 
depend  only  on  their  distances.     Hence  the  relative 


140    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

positions  of  the  material  points  at  a  given  moment — 
whatever  be  their  nature — would  be  strictly  deter- 
mined by  what  it  was  at  a  preceding  moment.  Thus 
the  energy  of  the  universe  remaining  constant  (ac- 
cording to  a  mechanical  interpretation  of  the  con- 
servation of  energy ) ,  nothing  can  in  the  least  degree 
influence  the  movement  of  any  body  but  the  impact 
upon  it  of  another  body.  And,  therefore,  mental 
initiative  or  creative  thought  on  the  plane  of  the 
human  is  quite  inconceivable,  for  it  would  surely 
increase  or  diminish  the  existing  quantity  of  energy. 
In  this  fashion  M.  Bergson  pushes  the  mechanical 
view  of  life  to  its  logical  end  and  shows  how  the  prin- 
ciple of  the  conservation  of  energy  applied  to  the 
mental  life  causes  the  deterministic  view  to  break 
down.2 

Determinism  and  Truth.  Another  serious  objection  to 
the  belief  in  determinism  is  that  it  leaves  us  no  ground 
upon  which  to  recognize  truth  from  error.  It  is  a 
fundamental  assumption  of  all  rational  thinking  that 
our  senses  bring  us  trustworthy  reports  from  an  order 
of  reality.  Of  course  they  do  deceive  us  occasionally, 
but  we  absolutely  must  and  do  assume  their  general 
reliability.  Without  this  all  attempts  to  build  up 
knowledge  are  at  an  end.  So  also  of  our  mental  facul- 
ties. The  powers  and  processes  of  our  mind  must  be 
trustworthy.  We  must  assume  that  reason  leads  us 
toward  truth  and  not  away  from  it.  But  what  about 
error?  There  is  no  denying  that  it  is  a  fact  of  our 
mental  life.  Some  of  our  supposed  knowledge  turns 
out  to  be  groundless,  and  we  find  that  we  made  a  mis- 


1  See  Bergson,  Les  DonnSes  Immediates  de  la  Conscience,  translated  under  title  of 
Time  and  Free  Will,  pp.  144ff. 


PERSONALITY  141 

take.  Beliefs  are  seen  to  be  ill-founded,  and  we  know 
we  strayed  from  the  truth.  But  now,  on  the  hypoth- 
esis that  our  mental  processes  are  determined,  what 
are  we  to  say  to  this?  Is  error,  which  certainly  forms 
a  part  of  our  experience,  necessitated  as  well  as  truth? 
When  we  fall  into  error,  if  our  mental  activity  is 
without  the  element  of  self-direction,  how  are  we  to 
account  for  the  error?  If  error  is  determined  like 
truth,  what  basis  or  criterion  remains  for  us  by  which 
to  distinguish  what  we  call  truth  from  what  we  call 
error?  In  a  determined  system  why  should  not  all 
the  product  of  our  mental  activity  be  found  to  agree 
with  reality?  There  is  no  answer  to  these  embarrass- 
ing questions  except  to  deny  that  error  exists,  and  to 
call  it  an  aspect  of  truth  imperfectly  realized.  This 
the  absolute  idealism  is  compelled  to  do.  But  no 
satisfactory  explanation  of  how  anything  can  be  im- 
perfectly realized  in  an  absolute  system  is  forthcom- 
ing. 

In  truth,  the  problem  of  how  to  account  for  the  fact 
of  error  in  experience  is  the  rock  on  which  all  deter- 
ministic assumptions  are  ultimately  wrecked.  The 
assumption  of  freedom,  on  the  other  hand,  enables  us 
to  understand  how  error  can  exist  in  experience.  Our 
senses  are  trustworthy  in  their  reports  of  reality  and 
our  mental  faculties  lead  toward  truth.  But  the 
direction  of  our  mental  activity  is  to  some  degree  in 
our  own  power.  And  if  we  fail  in  the  right  use  of 
our  mental  faculties,  the  explanation  and  responsi- 
bility for  error  lie  with  us. 

Determinism  and  Moral  Responsibility.  But  we  are  not 
yet  done  with  determinism.  All  theories  of  necessity 
break  down  on  the  problem  of  error,  as  we  have  seen. 


142    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

And  when  we  consider  determinism  in  relation  to 
ethical  ideas  and  moral  conduct  its  inadequacy  be- 
comes fully  apparent.  We  need  not  dwell  upon  the 
argument  here,  for  it  is  fairly  well  understood.  It 
must  be  admitted  that  if  men  are  to  be  held  morally 
responsible  for  their  acts,  we  thereby  imply  that  they 
must  be  free  to  choose.  Very  often  the  choice  is  that 
of  ideals,  friends,  surroundings,  etc.,  which,  after  the 
choice  has  been  made,  determines  the  kind  of  influ- 
ences under  which  habits  will  be  formed.  Great 
choices  often  determine  the  kind  of  motives  which 
later  will  grow  inevitably  out  of  the  soil  of  environ- 
ment. But  that  free  choice  is  the  determining  factor 
in  character  we  must  admit.  A  refusal  to  give  free- 
dom a  place  cancels  the  validity  of  moral  responsi- 
bility and  makes  character  a  mechanical  resultant. 
Purposes  stripped  of  the  element  of  freedom  become 
mere  causes  in  the  chain  of  mechanical  causation — 
the  only  difference  being  that  the  agent  is  a  human 
being  instead  of  a  natural  force,  like  gravitation  or 
chemical  affinity.  There  is  no  longer  such  distinction 
as  merit  and  demerit.  Men  commonly  called  crim- 
inals are  really  the  victims  of  unfortunate  conditions. 
But,  admitting  that  many  conditions  in  a  man's  life 
seem  determined  by  forces  beyond  his  control,  we 
nevertheless  maintain  the  absolute  need  of  freedom. 
To  deny  it  is  to  cancel  moral  responsibility.  A  study 
of  the  moral  life  and  its  conditions  soon  shows  us  that 
the  range  of  freedom  varies.  We  find  circumstances 
where  freedom  seems  possible  only  within  narrow 
limits,  but  this  fact  should  not  lead  us  to  deny  free- 
dom any  more  than  the  recognition  that  responsibility 
varies  greatly  should  lead  us  to  deny  responsibility. 


PERSONALITY  143 

Just  as  determinism  is  soon  wrecked  on  the  problem 
of  error  when  we  examine  into  the  validity  of  our 
knowledge,  in  like  manner  determinism  meets  disaster 
on  the  rock  of  moral  responsibility  in  the  field  of 
ethics. 

But  there  is  really  no  need  to  point  out  further  the 
weakness  of  this  view.  Any  doctrine  that  obliterates 
the  basis  of  distinctions  between  truth  and  error,  can- 
cels moral  standards,  and  thereby  knocks  the  founda- 
tions away  from  the  ethical  life,  is  by  that  very  fact 
outlawed.  There  is,  however,  a  modification  of  the 
old  deterministic  view  which  must  be  noted.  This 
is  the  doctrine  generally  called  "modified  determin- 
ism." Professor  James  calls  it  "soft  determinism,"  in 
distinction  from  "hard  determinism"  just  explained.3 
This  doctrine  is  about  as  follows : 

Modified  Determinism.  The  decisions  of  the  self  do, 
incleed,  play  a  most  important  part  in  all  rational 
action.  Volitions  are  formed  by  the  mind  as  results  of 
the  stronger  motives.  These  motives  are  not  to  be  con- 
sidered as  causes  apart  from  the  self.  In  this  the 
mechanical  determinist  is  wrong.  Motives  are  prac- 
tically identical  with  the  self.  It  follows,  then,  that 
what  a  man  has  become,  that  is,  his  nature  and  char- 
acter, will  determine  what  he  does  in  a  particular  sit- 
uation. What  he  has  become  has  resulted  from  his 
environment.  By  environment  is  meant  the  sum  total 
of  all  the  influences  which  have  molded  and  impressed 
him  from  the  beginning  of  his  conscious  life.  There- 
fore, while  a  man  may  choose  his  action,  what  he 
has  become  always  determines  wThat  he  will  choose. 


•  See  James,  The  Dilemma  of  Determinism,  for  an  excellent  discussion  of  the  short- 
comings of  the  deterministic  philosophy. 


144    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

Freedom,  therefore,  means  the  determination  of  action 
by  character.  Action  thus  determined  does  not,  how- 
ever, admit  of  alternatives  or  open  possibilities  in 
choice.  What  a  man  has  gradually  become  will  de- 
termine what  he  will  choose  in  every  case.  Conse- 
quently, knowing  the  man,  his  actions  may  be  con- 
fidently predicted. 

Determinism  and  Character.  Now,  this  view,  while  it 
smooths  over  the  harshness  of  mechanical  determin- 
ism, proves  to  be  just  as  indefensible  on  critical  ex- 
amination. Indeed,  it  cannot  be  shown  to  be  funda- 
mentally different  from  mechanical  determinism.  It 
is  affirmed  that  action  in  any  particular  case  is  deter- 
mined, not  by  mechanical  forces  acting  from  the 
outside,  but  by  the  self.  But  is  the  self  to  be  taken 
here  materially?  Is  it  the  physical  antecedents  like 
the  brain,  physical  constitution,  etc.?  If  so,  then  this 
doctrine  does  not  differ  at  all  from  mechanical  de- 
terminism. Or  is  the  self  to  be  thought  of  morally, 
that  is,  as  character?  If  so,  it  is  difficult  to  see  how 
anything  really  moral  can  ever  emerge,  for  note  that 
the  doctrine  teaches  that  a  man  acts  in  each  case  in 
only  one  way — the  way  he  had  to  act  as  determined 
by  all  that  he  had  become.  Following  this  back,  we 
must  come  ultimately  to  a  time  when  in  early  years 
of  life  conduct  becomes  less  and  less  moral,  and  it 
becomes  quite  apparent  that  unless  we  allow  the  pos- 
sibility of  alternatives  in  conduct,  we  cannot  see  how 
the  moral  quality  so  necessary  to  character  could  ever 
have  found  its  way  into  conduct  at  all,  for  the  develop- 
ing self  cannot,  according  to  the  theory,  escape  its 
causal  connection  with  the  past.  What  a  man  is, 
as  seen  in  the  character  of  his  acts  to-day,  was  deter- 


PERSONALITY  145 

mined  for  hirn  by  what  he  had  become  by  previous 
acts,  and  in  like  manner  those  previous  acts  were 
determined  by  what  he  had  become  antecedent  to 
them,  and  so  on.  From  this  it  will  appear  that  the 
doctrine  demands  the  belief  that  character,  if  moral, 
must  somehow  have  come  at  some  time  from  non- 
moral  antecedents.  But  if  character  be  taken  as  non- 
moral,  then  the  doctrine  falls  by  the  weight  of  its  own 
absurdity. 

Determinism  and  Repentance.  Another  objection  fatal 
to  this  modified  determinism  is  that  it  leaves  no  place 
for  regret  and  repentance.  Life,  therefore,  furnishes 
us  with  facts  which  refute  it.  If  the  theory  were  true, 
why  should  men  feel  remorse?  Remorse  and  repent- 
ance carry  the  implication  that  the  outcome  might 
have  been  different,  and  that  the  power  to  make  them 
different  lay  in  the  hands  of  the  person  who  thus  feels 
the  remorse.  Now,  it  is  very  certain  that  repentance 
and  remorse  are  facts  of  human  experience.  If,  now, 
there  is  really  no  power  in  us  to  make  outcomes  any 
different  than  the  way  they  actually  happen,  then 
does  it  not  follow  that  remorse  and  repentance  are 
emotions  without  adequate  rational  ground?  Should 
we  not,  therefore,  recognize  them  as  unwarranted, 
and,  enlightened  by  the  teachings  of  determinism, 
seek  to  eliminate  them  from  our  inner  experience? 
But,  of  course,  that  means  adopting  essentially  the 
mental  attitude  of  the  fatalist  toward  all  outcomes. 
Can  we  endure  such  consequences  as  these?  Deter- 
minism struggles  in  vain  to  avoid  this  result.  If  one 
is  not  accountable  for  the  consequences  of  his  action, 
repentance  or  remorse  is  clearly  not  rationally 
grounded.     All  we  could  say  is  we  think  we  are  ac- 


146    FOUNDATIONS  OP  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

countable,  and  hence  repentance  remains  as  a  kind  of 
moral  convention  with  no  justification,  however,  in 
reason.  The  only  basis  upon  which  we  may  believe 
that  remorse  and  repentance  are  not  groundless  feel- 
ings but  deep  convictions  of  wrongdoing  which  are 
rationally  justified,  is  the  belief  in  freedom. 

Our  Consciousness  of  Freedom.  Freedom  is  practically 
assumed  even  by  those  who  are  most  strenuous  in 
advocating  its  untenability  on  abstractly  logical 
grounds.  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson  used  to  end  the  debate 
on  free  will  by  saying,  "We  know  we  are  free,  and 
that's  the  end  of  it."  This  sounds  fairly  dogmatic, 
but  there  is  more  to  it  than  mere  dogmatism.  The 
truth  is  that  the  debate  over  freedom  and  determin- 
ism is  a  good  deal  like  that  on  knowledge  and  skep- 
ticism. To  affirm  complete  skepticism  is  logical 
absurdity,  for  the  skeptic  must  allow  himself  some 
standing  ground  in  the  domain  of  knowledge.  He 
professes  to  know  that  there  can  be  no  valid  basis  for 
knowledge,  and  is  not  backward  in  telling  those  who 
think  we  have  valid  knowledge  why  he  knows  we 
have  not.  Indeed,  considerable  knowledge  seems  al- 
ways to  be  involved  in  this  task  of  proving  that 
there  are  no  valid  grounds  of  knowledge.  And  in 
like  manner  to  affirm  complete  determinism  puts 
the  determinist  in  much  the  same  plight.  He  calls 
upon  his  brother  thinker  who  is  uncritical  enough 
to  believe  in  freedom  to  reconsider,  to  think  again  and 
renounce  his  error  and  accept  the  view  of  necessity 
as  the  true  doctrine.  But,  alas  for  the  advocate 
of  freedom!  how  can  he  heed  the  deterministic  ex- 
hortation to  think  again?  If  determinism  is  true, 
then  he  is  not  directing  his  mental  activity,  and 


PERSONALITY  147 

how  can  he  think  again?  It  begins  to  look  as 
though  we  must  either  give  up  any  thoroughgoing 
determinism,  such  as  is  supposed  to  involve  our  men- 
tal life,  or  decide  that  with  regard  to  rational  activ- 
ity exhortations  or  attempts  to  reconsider  are  de- 
cidedly out  of  order,  because  reconsideration  is  not 
possible.  If  our  intellectual  life  is  determined,  con- 
clusions should  follow  from  evidence  automatically 
and  without  hesitation  or  error. 

But  we  most  assuredly  know  that  a  motion  to  recon- 
sider is  always  in  order  in  our  thought  life.  Even 
our  judgments  of  perception  sometimes  show  poor 
mental  workmanship  and  have  to  be  corrected  by  a 
second  and  more  careful  observation.  We  know  that 
we  can  direct  our  attention  at  will,  that  on  our  own 
initiative  we  can  control  our  thoughts,  that  we  can 
return  to  an  argument  and  decide  to  make  it  better. 
Indeed,  all  throughout  our  thought  life  we  assume, 
and  act  continually  upon  the  assumption,  that  we  can 
and  do  control  our  mental  processes. 

The  Abstract  Problem  of  Freedom  or  Determinism  Insol- 
uble. But  we  are  not  anxious  to  press  the  argument 
against  what  we  have  called  complete,  or  thorough- 
going, determinism.  For  complete  determinism  is, 
after  all,  a  pure  abstraction,  and  so  is  complete  and 
thoroughgoing  freedom.  There  is  no  use  in  arguing 
for  either.  Logically,  the  one  excludes  the  other,  and 
we  have  the  familiar  "either — or"  deadlock.  This  has 
been  used  again  and  again,  and  the  literature  of  this 
time-honored  debate  furnishes  some  interesting  illus- 
trations of  the  perennial  barrenness  of  abstract  log- 
ical reasoning,  apart  from  the  concrete  conditions  of 
actual  life.     The  truth  is  that  those  whose  scientific 


148    FOUNDATIONS  OP  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

training  has  led  them  to  think  constantly  in  terms  of 
mechanical  causation,  and  who  have  hypostatized 
"Science"  into  a  vast  unity,  complete  and  all-embrac- 
ing, governed  throughout  by  unvarying  laws,  seem 
to  find  very  little  sympathy  or  place  for  such  an 
assumption  as  freedom.  It  introduces  an  element 
which  seems  to  destroy  the  monism.  Some  will  indeed 
allow  freedom  as  a  necessary  belief,  but  wish  it  con- 
fined strictly  to  the  will  in  the  field  of  ethics.  This 
is,  of  course,  uncritical,  since  motives  are  mental  pro- 
ducts. And,  on  the  other  hand,  those  whose  training 
has  been  in  philosophy,  in  ethics  and  social  science, 
whose  thought  has  been  engaged  with  the  problems 
of  the  moral  relations  of  men,  find  no  sympathy  or 
place  for  such  an  assumption  as  determinism.  It  in- 
troduces an  idea  which  is  unmanageable  in  ethics  and 
sociology,  an  idea  which  when  consistently  applied 
cancels  human  responsibility  for  error  in  thought  and 
unrighteousness  in  conduct.  Now,  if  we  are  to  escape 
the  constant  barrenness  of  formal  debates  on  this 
problem,  we  had  better  abjure  abstract  discussion  and 
see  what  can  be  done  by  keeping  just  as  close  to  the 
facts  of  concrete  life  as  possible.  If  we  do  this,  the 
case  for  freedom  can  soon  be  stated. 

Freedom  and  Life.  When  we  turn  to  actual  human 
life  what  do  we  find?  We  find  conditions  which 
look  very  much  as  if  they  were  determined  existing 
along  with  powers  that  look  very  much  like  self-con- 
trol. There  are  some  conditions  of  human  life  which 
may  be  called  outward  and  some  inward,  though  these 
adjectives  are  not  to  be  taken  as  spatial,  nor  is  any 
clear  line  of  demarcation  to  be  drawn  between  the  two 
sets  of  conditions.    Thus  ancestry  and  all  that  limits 


PERSONALITY  149 

a  man  by  way  of  heredity  and  environment  may  be 
called  outward  conditions.  These  will  determine  his 
thought  and  activity.  On  the  other  hand,  the  man's 
action  will  be  determined  by  his  own  nature,  his 
temperament,  his  attitude  to  his  fellow  men,  and  his 
view  of  life.  This  may  be  called  inward,  but  is,  of 
course,  connected  causally  with  the  outward  condi- 
tions. A  study  of  these  limiting  factors  very  soon 
convinces  us  that  whatever  may  be  the  range  of  free- 
dom, it  is  not  that  unrestricted  liberty  of  choice  which 
it  has  been  too  often  represented  to  be.  The  limits 
within  which  freedom  seems  possible  are  generally 
soon  reached.  The  conditioning  factors  in  our  lives 
with  which  we  have  had  nothing  to  do  work  out  a  kind 
of  natural  predestination  in  many  ways.  This  means 
that  important  factors  in  life,  even  personal  relation- 
ships, are  often  determined  so  far  as  we  can  see  by 
forces  over  which  we  have  had  no  control. 

Meaning  of  Freedom.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  if  the 
great  moral  task  of  human  life  is  the  development  of 
character,  and  a  man  is  obliged  to  accept  these  con- 
ditions and  within  their  limits  make  his  life  of  moral 
worth,  then  it  is  clear  that  some  considerable  power 
of  self-determination  must  remain  his.  Character  is 
growth,  and  what  a  man's  character  finally  becomes 
is  determined  by  the  directions  in  which  that  char- 
acter has  grown.  And,  surely,  those  important 
matters  and  crucial  choices  which  set  the  directions 
of  character  must  remain  within  the  realm  of  his  self- 
determination.  Motives  seem  to  contain  many  factors 
which  appear  determined.  They  must  also  depend  to 
no  unimportant  degree  upon  the  rational  judgments 
and  feelings,  for  the  psychic  activity  of  man  is  a  unity 


150    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

and  the  abstraction  of  the  will  from  the  reason  and 
feelings  is  fictitious.  We  may  separate  the  mental 
activity  logically  for  purposes  of  study,  but  no  such 
separation  exists  in  reality.  If  there  be  freedom  in 
volition,  there  is  also  freedom  in  the  creation  of  the 
rational  judgments. 

Freedom  Not  Lawlessness.  And  if  freedom  often  finds 
its  meaning  within  rather  narrow  limits,  and  does  not 
mean  wide  liberty  of  choosing,  we  must  suggest  that 
freedom  does  not  mean  arbitrariness  in  choice.  One 
of  the  traditional  and  persistent  misunderstandings 
of  the  doctrine  of  freedom  is  that  it  means  or  implies 
chance.  And  chance  is  taken  to  mean  lawlessness — a 
mere  happening  so  with  nothing  to  secure  or  guar- 
antee the  outcome.  But  this  is  wholly  fallacious. 
What  is  popularly  called  a  "chance"  result  is  rigidly 
governed  by  law.  For  example,  if  a  man  flips  up  a 
coin,  we  say  it  is  a  mere  chance  how  it  will  come  down. 
But  careful  reflection  convinces  us  that  if  we  could 
know  the  initial  impulse  given  to  the  coin,  the  weight 
of  the  coin,  and  some  other  data,  the  exact  number 
of  times  the  coin  would  turn  in  the  air  could  be  com- 
puted with  mathematical  exactness  and  the  side  upon 
which  it  would  fall  could  be  predicted.  The  only  rea- 
son we  can  never  know  is  that  the  data  are  not  obtain- 
able and  the  problem  itself  beyond  our  mental  capac- 
ity. So  we  call  our  inability  to  solve  it  "chance." 
There  can  be  no  such  thing  as  chance  in  the  sense  of 
an  unrelated  or  lawless  event.  All  chance  can  mean 
for  reflective  thought  is  that  we  are  not  able  to  predict 
an  act  or  an  outcome  in  advance.  And  in  the  same 
manner  there  can  be  no  such  thing  as  a  freedom 
which   means   lawlessness   or   haphazard   outcomes. 


PERSONALITY  151 

The  supposition  that  freedom  must  mean  something 
like  this  has  lent  the  deterministic  view  a  strength  to 
which  it  is  not  entitled.  The  demand  for  fundamental 
unity  in  our  view  of  things  is  as  important  to  the 
philosopher  as  to  the  scientist.  Both  must  admit  the 
universality  of  the  principle  of  causation,  but  it  is 
serious  fallacy  to  suppose  that  the  only  way  the  de- 
mand for  causal  unity  can  be  met  is  through  mechan- 
ical determination.  Surely,  self-directing  activity 
does  not  violate  the  principle  of  causality,  and  self- 
directing  activity  certainly  fits  the  facts  of  human 
experience  a  great  deal  better  than  mechanical  de- 
termination. Freedom,  therefore,  cannot  mean  law- 
less activity.  Indeed,  as  already  pointed  out,  the 
limits  of  freedom  are  generally  narrow  and  soon 
reached.  In  our  judgments  we  are  conditioned  by  cir- 
cumstances about  us  and  by  our  own  natures.  If  our 
mental  activity  is  free,  it  is  also  strictly  limited  by 
these  condtions  and  by  the  laws  of  reason.  Thus 
with  the  variable  in  the  equation  of  experience  there 
are  many  constants.  We  find  them  both.  Abstractly, 
they  appear  quite  irreconcilable.  But,  as  Professor 
Bowne  points  out  in  his  discussion  of  freedom,4  the 
ideas  of  convexity  and  concavity  are  contradictory 
from  the  abstract  point  of  view.  But  in  experience 
we  find  that  they  harmonize  so  well  that  it  turns  out 
that  we  cannot  find  the  one  without  the  other.  And 
so  there  is  a  reconciling  in  the  reality  of  concrete 
experience  of  ideas  which  when  considered  abstractly 
and  apart  seem  hopelessly  antagonistic. 

We  may  embody  the  essential  meaning  of  freedom 
in  two  or  three  concrete  statements.    First,  moral  free- 

*  Metaphysics,  p.  41  If. 


152    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

dom  does  not  mean  arbitrariness  in  self-direction  or 
choice.  Second,  freedom  is  always  limited  by  the 
conditioning  circumstances  and  by  the  laws  of  reason. 
Freedom  implies  a  judgment  of  values — a  conclusion 
that  some  actions  are  better  in  some  way  than  others. 
Third,  moral  freedom  means  that  the  choosing  of 
action  is  indeed  a  resultant  of  previous  character.  If 
acts  could  be  willed  without  any  relation  to  character, 
they  would  be  simply  nonmoral  acts.  But  every 
rational  choice  of  conduct  produces  a  moral  deposit  in 
character,  with  the  result  that  as  character  develops 
there  does  indeed  become  less  and  less  need  for  new 
moral  dcisions.  "In  the  vast  majority  of  cases,  though 
potentially  free,  we  act  mechanically,  following  out 
the  general  plan  of  life  which  Ave  have  adopted,  simply 
obeying  the  motives  to  whose  guidance  we  have  al- 
ready surrendered  ourselves.  There  is  an  immense 
moral  advantage  which  thus  allows  our  actions  to  be 
virtually  necessitated  by  our  character.  For  wTe  do 
not  have  to  fight  over  again  the  whole  battle  of  life 
in  every  alternative  of  good  or  evil  conduct  which 
presents  itself  to  us."  5 

Freedom  and  Monism.  To  the  objection  that  human 
freedom  destroys  a  monistic  view  of  the  universe  we 
reply  that  this  is  true  only  on  a  materialistic  or  pan- 
theistic basis  of  thought.  The  full  discussion  of  this 
point  would  carry  us  too  far  into  metaphysics  for  the 
present  purpose.  It  must  be  sufficient  to  point  out 
that  if  the  Infinite  Intelligence  is  personal,  and  this 
is  a  moral  universe  in  which  the  training  of  humanity 
in  moral  and  spiritual  ideals  is  to  be  thought  of  as 
a  controlling  divine  purpose,  then  the  possession  of 

*  William  North  Rice,  Christian  Faith  in  an  Age  of  Science. 


PERSONALITY  153 

some  degree  of  freedom  by  men  is  in  no  sense  a  de- 
struction of  a  tenable  monism.  The  ground  of  human 
freedom  will  lie  in  the  eternal  moral  purposes  of  God, 
and  any  limitation  of  the  divine  necessitated  by  a 
degree  of  freedom  in  the  human  must  be  regarded  as 
a  limitation  self-imposed  by  God  in  order  to  realize 
his  eternal  will. 

Grounds  for  Affirming  Freedom.  There  is  no  logical 
demonstration  of  freedom ;  but  this  is  nothing  to  give 
us  anxiety,  for  there  is  no  demonstration  of  its  op- 
posite^— determinism.  And  we  believe  with  fullest 
assurance  many  things  which  we  do  not  attempt  log- 
ically to  prove.  Our  great  beliefs  are,  after  all, 
mental  resultants.  The  grounds  for  holding  them 
take  far  wider  swing  than  the  limited  radius  of  logical 
proof.  These  beliefs  come  out  of  the  great  practical 
needs  of  life.  With  respect  to  mental  and  moral  free- 
dom, the  important  question  is  not  whether  this  belief 
can  be  logically  demonstrated  or  not.  The  important 
questions  are,  What  are  the  consequences  of  deny- 
ing it?  and,  WThat  are  the  reasons  for  affirming  it? 
We  have  seen  that  a  denial  of  freedom,  if  taken  seri- 
ously, deprives  us  of  rational  grounds  for  distinguish- 
ing between  truth  and  error.  It  invalidates  moral 
standards  so  that  ethics  become  really  a  higher  aspect 
of  mechanics — higher  only  by  courtesy,  because  the 
activities  of  men  happen  to  be  under  investigation, 
not  the  motions  of  material  bodies.  Can  we  endure 
the  denial  of  freedom  when  it  involves  such  conse- 
quences as  these? 

Creative  Thought  Points  to  Freedom.  But  there  are 
other  phases  of  human  activity  which,  when  examined, 
tend  to  reassure  us  that  the  confidence  we  feel  in  our 


154    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

own  power  of  choice  is  not  ill-founded.  While  they 
are  by  no  means  demonstrations,  yet  they  serve  to 
strengthen  our  confidence  in  our  own  power  of  self- 
direction  and  to  illustrate  it.  The  initiative  dis- 
played by  the  human  mind  often  amounts  to  creative 
activity,  and  creative  activity  on  the  part  of  the  mind 
cannot  be  accounted  for  on  the  supposition  that  a 
man's  mind  and  its  product  are  determined  by  phys- 
ical causes.  As  Bergson  has  conclusively  shown,  the 
application  of  the  principle  of  the  conservation  of 
energy  to  the  mental  life  breaks  down  in  the  face  of 
obvious  facts.  Here,  for  example,  is  a  man  trained  in 
the  new  science  of  irrigation.  He  stands  on  a  hill 
overlooking  a  broad  valley.  The  landscape  is  barren 
of  vegetation  except  such  as  will  live  in  arid  regions, 
but  the  man  is  noting  the  configuration  of  the  country 
and  is  planning  a  wTay  to  bring  the  waters  of  a  neigh- 
boring stream  in  upon  the  dry  soil.  Soon  the  plans 
made  in  thought  are  recorded  upon  paper  and  now 
the  irrigation  engineer  begins  to  see  in  his  imagination 
the  same  valley  dotted  with  trees  loaded  with  fruit; 
and  five  years  later — lo !  all  that  the  man  thought  has 
actually  come  to  pass.  The  landscape  is  completely 
changed  and  scientific  irrigation  has  made  the  desert 
literally  to  blossom  as  the  rose.  The  valley  as  it  now 
stands  represents  the  creative  thought  and  activity  of 
the  mind.  The  Panama  Canal  existed  down  to  the 
minutest  detail  in  the  thought  of  the  engineers  who 
designed  it  before  it  could  ever  exist  in  objective  real- 
ity upon  the  face  of  the  earth.  The  great  aerial  of  the 
wireless  station  lifts  its  metallic  threads  above  the 
earth  and  an  intangible  medium  becomes  the  bearer 
of  the  messages  across  the  seas.    Yet  before  this  could 


PERSONALITY  155 

be  accomplished  in  the  world  of  objective  fact  the 
mind  of  a  man  had  to  find  the  invisible  medium  and 
think  out  and  plan  a  wonderfully  sensitive  piece  of 
apparatus  with  which  to  catch  the  impulses  which  go 
silently  and  invisibly  through  it. 

Here  is  mind  endowed  with  the  powers  of  creation ; 
that  is  to  say,  men  by  their  mental  activity  discover 
the  hidden  forces  of  nature  and  call  into  being  things 
like  the  blossoming  desert,  the  great  canal,  the  tunnel 
through  the  Alps.  Those  masterpieces  named  the 
Parthenon,  the  Ninth  Symphony,  the  statue  of  David, 
Hamlet,  could  not  have  come  into  existence  without 
that  power  of  mental  initiative  which  we  call  creative 
thought.  We  do  not  urge  that  this  disproves  deter- 
minism nor  proves  freedom.  There  is  strictly  no 
proof  or  disproof  of  either.  But  it  surely  lends  no 
small  weight  to  the  belief  in  freedom.  We  admit  that 
the  ultimate  ground  of  finite  intelligence  is  Infinite 
Intelligence,  but  we  must  not  conceive  the  relation 
between  the  two  in  such  a  fashion  that  the  human 
thinker  becomes  the  mere  channel  or  instrument 
played  upon  by  the  Divine  Thought.  The  powers  of 
thought,  feeling,  and  will  are  indeed  divinely  be- 
stowed, according  to  Christian  thought,  but  there 
must  remain  the  sphere  within  which  men  are  free  to 
use  these  God-given  gifts  as  they  will.  For  if  all  is 
divinely  determined,  then  must  men's  sad  misuse  of 
the  powers  be  included  also ! 

But  what  a  contrast  between  the  mind  of  the  master 
thinker  and  the  mind  of  the  animal  whose  instinctive 
acts  seem  to  be  mere  resultants!  When  we  classify 
man  zoologically,  that  is,  as  an  animal,  brain  char- 
acteristics  and  other  anatomical  resemblances  are 


156    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

decisive,  and  we  place  him  among  the  primates — the 
highest  order  of  mammals — along  with  the  apes.  But 
what  shall  we  say  of  a  classification  which  includes 
two  beings  so  totally  different  (in  all  the  character- 
istics except  anatomical)  as  man  and  the  chimpanzee? 
We  say,  of  course,  that  such  classification  simply  em- 
phasizes and  records  those  physical  similarities  upon 
which  it  is  based.  But  we  know  at  the  same  time  that 
the  differences  between  man  and  the  ape  are  far  more 
characteristic  and  fundamental  than  the  similar- 
ities. And  the  most  striking  of  these  differences  is 
with  respect  to  this  power  of  thought  initiative.  Man 
thinks  and  then  his  activities  produce  those  existences 
which  embody  his  thoughts.  A  being  who  can  do  this 
is  a  personal  being  as  distinguished  from  a  mere 
being.  An  animal  is  a  being ;  a  man  is  a  person.  The 
most  characteristic  element  of  personality,  therefore, 
is  the  power  of  self-direction  in  thought. 

Freedom  Fundamental  to  Personality.  We  dwell  upon 
this  question  of  freedom  because  it  is  so  very  impor- 
tant in  the  moral  relationships  of  life.  It  is  therefore 
fundamental  in  ethics,  sociology,  and  religion.  As 
already  pointed  out,  there  can  be  no  moral  responsi- 
bility for  man's  conduct,  if  that  conduct  is  necessi- 
tated. Responsibility,  guilt,  merit,  virtue,  character, 
all  have  a  real  and  not  simply  a  conventional  mean- 
ing, only  as  human  conduct  is  thought  of  as  resulting 
from  the  direction  of  the  free  self.  Returning  now  to 
our  discussion  of  the  meaning  of  personality,  it  must 
be  borne  in  mind  that  personal  relationships  are  al- 
ways moral  relationships,  for  they  cannot  exist  with- 
out involving  obligation  in  some  form,  and  obligations 
to  be  real  must  be  sustained  by  the  will.     Thus  it 


PERSONALITY  157 

appears  that  the  personal  always  means  the  moral, 
and  the  moral  demands  the  freedom  of  the  self  in 
order  to  realize  the  obligations  which  inevitably  grow 
out  of  the  personal  relationships  of  life. 

Moral  Love  and  Personality.  But  we  have  not  yet 
fully  explored  the  depths  of  personality.  Self-con- 
sciousness and  self-determination  are  indeed  funda- 
mental. But  there  is  another  factor  in  human  per- 
sonality which  is  of  supreme  importance  from  the 
point  of  view  of  religious  philosophy,  namely,  the  feel- 
ings or  affections.  Moral  love  is  not  less  basic  than 
moral  freedom.  In  the  development  of  human  person- 
ality the  affections  are  the  first  to  grow.  Long  before 
the  human  child  has  any  adequate  conception  of  itself 
as  a  conscious  being  he  has  learned  the  sweet  lessons 
of  love.  And  in  later  years,  long  after  the  imperial 
will  may  have  retreated  within  the  ruins  of  the  former 
self,  the  affections  remain  like  embers  still  warm 
under  the  gray  ashes  of  humiliation.  This  has  been 
demonstrated  again  and  again  in  life.  Most  of  the 
men  who  have  been  reclaimed  from  the  depths  of 
moral  depravity  have  made  response,  not  to  appeals 
addressed  to  their  intellects,  nor  to  their  broken  wills. 
The  arousement  has  come  first  by  their  affections — 
some  lingering  memories  of  the  love  of  a  mother  per- 
haps have  furnished  the  initial  impulse  on  the  human 
side  through  which  the  will  found  strength  again. 
The  last  power  the  human  soul  loses  is  the  power  to 
love  and  respond  to  love.  Indeed,  so  vital  to  human 
personality  is  the  ability  to  love  that  when  we  try  to 
think  of  a  person  who  never  had  the  power  of  affection 
the  result  is  not  the  conception  of  a  human  being  but 
that  of  a  fiend.    Personality  is  far  from  being  com- 


158  FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

plete  when  we  have  reckoned  only  with  the  mind  and 
the  will.  We  must  also  reckon  with  that  power  of  the 
soul  which  men  have  centered  in  the  heart.  In  the 
language  of  moral  life  the  "heart"  stands  for  the 
source  of  all  those  emotions,  sympathies,  and  affec- 
tions which  give  the  life  richness  and  depth. 

Importance  of  the  Feelings.  The  emotions  rank  among 
the  highest  powers  of  the  soul.  Surely,  they  have  in 
the  lives  of  most  men  a  more  commanding  position 
than  the  intellect.  They  inspire  heroism  where  cool 
reason  may  fail  to  move  men  to  action.  The  warmth 
and  glow  of  life,  its  highest  joys  aud  deepest  and  holi- 
est sacrifices,  flow  from  the  springs  of  feeling.  It  is 
a  much  greater  factor  in  the  formation  of  beliefs,  with 
most  men,  than  intellect.  No  man's  mind  can  pos- 
sibly be  the  "cold,  logical  engine"  that  Huxley  thought 
so  desirable.  It  is  always  true,  as  Pascal  said,  that 
the  "heart  has  reasons  that  the  intellect  does  not 
know."  And  our  great  beliefs  are  practical  resultants 
in  which  the  cool  dictates  of  reason  are  happily 
blended  with  warmer  feeling. 

But  now  some  one  begins  to  object  that  all  this  is 
getting  rather  inexact  and  loose- jointed  for  a  discus- 
sion that  professes  to  be  philosophical.  The  feelings 
are  such  a  mass  of  variables  that  no  really  exact  and 
philosophical  treatment  can  be  offered  if  we  are  going 
to  include  them  in  a  discussion  of  personality.  We 
shall  be  apt  to  stray  from  the  straight  and  narrow 
path  of  strictly  rational  thinking.  While  we  have  to 
admit,  of  course,  the  element  of  feeling  as  an  im- 
portant factor  in  the  religious  life  of  the  individ- 
ual, still  we  cannot  do  much  with  it  philosophically, 
for  it  defies  analysis.     There  is  no   philosophy   of 


PERSONALITY  159 

mysticism,  and  in  the  very  nature  of  the  case  there 
cannot  be. 

To  all  this  we  make  a  twofold  reply.    First,  that 
there  are  feelings  and  feelings.     We  have  seen  in 
Chapter  IV  that  mere  particular  or  individual  feel- 
ing is  so  variable  and  insecure  a  basis  upon  which  to 
base  belief  that  it  cannot  be  reckoned  with.    But  the 
case  is  different  in  the  matter  of  the  great  common 
feelings  of  humanity.     Feeling  does  indeed  become 
fundamentally  significant  in  proportion  as  it  is  really 
universal  and  not  the  result  of  particular  environ- 
ment.    Such  feelings  we  must  recognize  and  reckon 
with  in  any  philosophy  which  professes  to  deal  with 
the  whole  of  life.    To  discuss  personality  as  self-con- 
sciousness and  self-determination  with  no  reference 
to  that  realm  of  feeling  in  which  the  person  manifests 
himself  so  directly  is  to  fail  to  reckon  with  all  there 
is  of  the  personal  self.    Second,  we  must  remind  our- 
selves that  at  the  very  outset  we  confessed  that  our 
discussion  was  to  be  from  the  viewpoint  of  religious 
values  and  not  simply  from  that  of  formal  or  abstract 
logic.     And  the  difference  is  simply  this,  that  the 
religious  ideal  aims  at  an  immediate  expression  in 
high  moral  action.    Righteousness,  not  rational  com- 
pleteness in  thinking,  is  its  goal.    And  yet  let  us  not 
forget  that  the  feelings  taken  alone  afford  an  insuffi- 
cient and  insecure  criterion  of  truth.     This  has  al- 
ready been  emphasized.     The  reason  is  needed  to  re- 
strain our  feelings  from  leading  us  into  one-sidedness 
and  extravagance.    And  intellectual  honesty  demands 
that  our  beliefs  result,  not  only  from   feeling  but 
from  a  diligent  search  for  the  truth  with  the  best  light 
reason  can  bring. 


100  FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

Personality  Grows  Out  of  Social  Relations.  Human  per- 
sonality as  it  grows  means  the  increasing  power  to 
know  oneself  and  to  determine  oneself.  But  human 
life  means  social  relations,  and  social  relations  de- 
mand that  the  determination  of  the  self  be  always 
with  reference  to  the  other  selves  about.  Thus  it  is 
in  that  network  of  moral  realtionships  which  we  call 
society  that  human  personality  develops.  And  be- 
cause of  this,  one  of  the  most  characteristic  features 
of  the  human  person  is  the  desire  for  fellowship  with 
other  persons.  This  impulse  which  drives  us  to  seek 
a  community  of  life  with  our  fellows  may  be  called 
by  various  names.  But  the  most  comprehensive  name 
for  it  is  love.  And  none  will  deny  that  it  is  so  univer- 
sally found  in  human  nature  that  we  must  not  fail  to 
include  it  when  we  sum  up  the  meaning  of  human 
personality. 

Conclusion.  We  conclude  that  personality  means 
mental  and  moral  freedom.  It  also  implies  the  moral 
love  through  which  each  human  being  seeks  the  com- 
pletion of  himself  in  the  fellowship  of  other  persons. 
Christian  theism  affirms  the  existence  of  an  Infinite 
Being  who  is  a  Person.  It  also  affirms  the  purpose  of 
this  Infinite  Person — God — to  realize  himself  by  re- 
producing something  of  his  divine  nature  in  lesser 
spirits  who  live  under  the  limitations  of  finite  life. 
With  a  perfect  freedom  God  expresses  in  his  divine 
activity  his  great  purposes  for  the  moral  development 
of  men.  These  purposes  demand  that  finite  beiugs 
also  should  realize  some  measure  of  freedom.  The 
ultimate  ground  of  human  freedom  must,  therefore, 
be  found  in  the  purpose  of  God  to  train  and  redeem 
finite  spirits  whom  he  has  created  "in  his  own  image." 


PERSONALITY  161 

The  Divine  Personality  must  also  include  moral  love. 
This  means  that  God  is  to  be  thought  of  as  establish- 
ing personal  relationships  with  men.  And  this  brings 
us  to  the  consideration  of  some  of  the  further  implica- 
tions of  divine  personality. 

Recommended  Reading 
Borden  P.  Bowne — Metaphysics,  Part  II,  Chapters  III  and  IV. 
William  James — The  Dilemma  of  Determinism. 
James  Seth — The  Problem  of  Freedom  in  "Ethical  Principles." 
Henri  Bergson — Time  and  Free  Will. 
J.  Ward— The  Realm  of  Ends,  Lecture  XIII. 


CHAPTER  VI 

DIVINE  PERSONALITY 

How  are  we  to  think  of  God  as  personal?  What 
thought  content  are  we  to  assign  to  the  word  "per- 
sonal" when  we  apply  it  in  thinking  of  the  Divine  Be- 
ing? We  shall  have  to  admit  at  once  that  even 
though  our  conception  of  personality  grows  out  of 
our  own  experience,  that  is,  from  fellowship  with 
other  persons  in  the  social  and  ethical  relationships 
of  life,  nevertheless  personality,  viewed  as  expressing 
the  divine  nature,  must  be  far  greater  than  the  per- 
sonality which  sums  up  the  nature  of  our  finite  selves. 
For  along  with  our  consciousness  of  free  self-hood 
there  goes  abundant  conviction  of  our  limitations. 
To  this  our  partial  insight  and  broken  plans  bear 
ample  testimony.  Indeed,  the  very  endowment  of 
personality  which  is  the  glory  of  our  human  nature, 
is  also  the  means  through  which  we  are  made  to 
realize  most  keenly  our  weakness  and  imperfection. 

Limitation  Not  an  Essential  Element  in  Personality.  But 
we  can  think  of  nothing  imperfect  in  God's  nature. 
He  could  not  remain  an  object  of  our  worship  if  we 
could.  His  wisdom  and  insight  are  complete,  and 
his  activity  always  results  in  a  perfect  expressing  of 
his  will.  Lotze,  in  his  Philosophy  of  Religion,  shows 
that  human  limitations,  far  from  being  necessary 
characteristics    of    personality,    as    has    often    been 

162 


DIVINE  PERSONALITY  103 

asserted,  are  really  no  essential  part  of  it.1  We  must 
now  note  the  objections  which  have  been  filed  against 
thinking  of  the  Divine  Being  as  a  personality. 

Objections  to  Thinking  of  God  as  Personal.  It  is  some- 
times objected  that  thinking  of  God  in  terms  of  per- 
sonality is  anthropomorphism  and  carries  with  it  an 
estimate  of  the  cosmic  importance  of  man  which  is 
not  warranted  by  the  revelations  science  has  made  of 
the  vastness  of  the  universe.  This  over  emphasis  of 
the  importance  of  man  detracts,  it  is  urged,  from  our 
ability  to  think  of  God  properly  as  the  One  Infinite 
and  Absolute  Being  in  the  universe.  The  time  was 
when  men  believed  that  the  earth  was  the  center  of 
things,  but  modern  science  has  shown  our  earth  as 
an  insignificant  member  of  an  incredibly  vast  system ; 
and  evolution  also  tends  greatly  to  stay  us  in  think- 
ing that  man  is  unique  and  so  exalted  in  creation — 
for  does  not  evolution  trace  the  steps  in  a  natural  de- 
velopment by  which  man  has  become  what  he  is? 

But  this  objection  rests  upon  a  superficial  natural- 
ism. It  fails  utterly  to  reckon  with  the  spiritual 
nature  of  man.  It  is  this  which  makes  man  the 
summit  of  creation.  John  Fiske  was  a  thoroughgoing 
evolutionist,  but  he  writes  in  that  most  significant 
little  book,  The  Destiny  of  Man  (p.  29)  :  "No  fact  in 
nature  is  fraught  with  deeper  meaning  than  this  two- 
sided  fact  of  the  extreme  physical  similarity  and 
enormous  physical  divergence  between  man  and  the 
group  of  animals  to  which  he  traces  his  pedigree.  It 
shows  that  when  humanity  began,  an  entirely  new 
chapter  in  the  history  of  the  universe  was  opened. 


1  See  Philosophy  of  Religion,  chap,  iv,  par.  41.    Also  Bowne,  Philosophy  of  Theism, 
pp.  132-134. 


164    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

Henceforth  the  life  of  the  nascent  soul  came  to  be 
first  in  importance  and  the  bodily  life  became  subor- 
dinated to  it.  .  .  .  He  who  has  mastered  the  Dar- 
winian theory,  he  who  recognizes  the  slow  and  subtle 
process  of  evolution  as  the  way  in  which  God  makes 
things  come  to  pass,  must  take  a  far  higher  view.  He 
sees  that  in  the  deadly  struggle  for  existence  which 
has  raged  throughout  countless  aeons  of  time  the 
whole  creation  has  been  groaning  and  travailing  to- 
gether in  order  to  bring  forth  that  last  consummate 
specimen  of  God's  handiwork,  the  human  soul." 

To  one  who  regards  this  universe  as  essentially 
moral,  and  human  life  as  supreme  in  creation  because 
of  its  moral  worth,  the  objection  we  are  considering 
carries  no  weight.  The  implications  of  the  objection 
are  really  materialistic  and  therefore  atheistic.  As 
John  Fiske  says,  "Once  dethrone  humanity,  regard 
it  as  a  mere  local  incident  in  an  endless  and  aimless 
series  of  cosmical  changes,  and  you  arrive  at  a  doctrine 
which,  under  whatever  specious  name  it  may  be  veiled, 
is  at  bottom  neither  more  nor  less  than  atheism."  2 

Again  it  is  urged  that  personality  gets  its  meaning 
from  the  ethical  and  social  relationships  of  our  human 
life.  The  human  person  is  a  person  by  virtue  of  the 
fact  that  he  is  a  member  of  a  social  organism  and  as 
such  is  limited,  conditioned,  and  obligated  by  his  vari- 
ous moral  relations.  But,  it  is  urged,  we  cannot  con- 
ceive of  God  as  obligated  or  conditioned,  for  to  do  so 
would  be  to  destroy  his  supreme  position  as  the  Abso- 
lute. This  is  the  substance  of  several  particular  objec- 
tions which  have  been  urged  from  time  to  time  against 
the  idea  of  God  as  a  personal  Being. 

2  Deatiny  of  Man,  p.  12. 


DIVINE  PERSONALITY  165 

In  answer  we  urge  that  the  conception  of  God  as 
"the  Absolute"  is  a  product  solely  of  abstract  philo- 
sophical speculation.  This  speculative  idea  of  "the 
Absolute"  means  the  sum  total  of  all  reality  and  im- 
plies that  the  Divine  as  "absolute"  is  out  of  or  be- 
yond all  relations  with  finite  life.  To  exist  in  rela- 
tions is  to  be  limited  and  conditioned  by  those  rela- 
tions. We  must  therefore  not  think  of  God  as  related, 
for  that  destroys  his  absoluteness.  It  does  not  re- 
quire prolonged  reflection  to  see  that  an  "Absolute" 
which  must  not  be  thought  of  as  related  in  some  vital 
way  to  finite  existence  cannot  be  grasped  by  finite 
thought  at  all.  We  may  well  believe  that  God  in  the 
fullness  of  his  divine  existence  transcends  all  our  finite 
thinking  about  him.  But  personality  is  the  highest 
form  of  existence  of  which  we  have  any  knowledge. 
And  it  surely  is  one  thing  to  say  that  our  thought 
grasps  something  of  the  divine  existence,  in  thinking 
of  God  under  the  highest  form  of  existence  we  know, 
and  quite  another  thing  to  set  up  a  really  unattain- 
able notion  of  the  Divine,  and  then,  because  the  human 
mind  cannot  grasp  the  notion,  conclude  that  God  is 
unknowable. 

Another  example  of  this  verbal  and  abstract  objec- 
tion to  the  conception  of  divine  personality  is  seen  in 
the  conclusions  sometimes  urged  from  the  concep- 
tion of  God's  unchangeability.  From  Spinoza  and 
other  speculators  we  have  inherited  the  idea  of  real- 
ity as  some  sort  of  immutable  "substance."  Indeed, 
the  words  "essence"  and  "substance"  have  haunted 
theology  for  generations.  But  when  we  get  clear  of 
the  "stuff"  theory  of  reality  and  recognize  the  truth 
that,  in  the  last  analysis,  being  is  revealed  only  in  and 


166    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

through  activity,  we  no  longer  try  to  conceive  of  God 
as  some  rigid  and  unchangeable  manifestation  of 
existence.  There  is  nothing  whatever  to  forbid  the 
thought  that  God  does  change  and  adjust  matters  in 
answer  to  our  newborn  needs.  His  unchangeableness 
is  to  be  found  in  the  constancy  of  his  moral  relations 
— his  love  and  his  unvarying  purpose  for  the  best  of 
men. 

An  Abstract  "Absolute"  Serves  No  Useful  Purpose.  Reli- 
gious thinking  and  the  needs  of  the  religious  life  have 
never  developed  such  an  idea  as  "the  Absolute,"  and 
find  very  little  use  for  it.  In  our  discussion  of  the 
foundations  of  knowledge  (Chapter  III)  we  have  seen 
that  any  valid  standard  for  testing  the  truth  of  our 
conceptions  involves  the  whole  experience.  This 
means  not  only  rational  thinking  but  the  universal 
feelings  of  men  and  the  serving  of  great  practical  ends 
in  the  moral  life.  In  this  connection  it  is  well  to 
note  that  men  have  always  assumed  that  the  Divine  is 
in  some  way  socially  and  morally  related  to  them- 
selves. From  the  early  days  when  primitive  peoples 
offered  a  joyous  sacrifice  of  food  to  their  god,  in  the 
simple  belief  that  he  would  come  down  and  fellowship 
with  them,  to  the  moment  when  Jesus  Christ  taught 
men  to  say  "Our  Father,"  there  has  never  been  a  time 
when  religious  men  did  not  think  of  the  Divine  Being 
as  morally  related  to  them.  Moral  obligations  of  wor- 
shiper to  divinity  and,  conversely,  of  divinity  to  wor- 
shiper were  a  part  of  all  early  religion,  and  they  re- 
main fundamental  to  religion  to-day.  Indeed,  with- 
out this,  religion  could  never  have  developed  at  all. 

Moral  Relation  Involves  Obligation.  Christian  teaching 
holds  that  not  only  does  the  creature  stand  in  a  rela- 


DIVINE  PERSONALITY  167 

tion  of  moral  obligation  to  the  Creator,  but  that  the 
Creator  also  is  morally  obligated  to  the  creature.  The 
great  words,  "Our  Father,"  admit  of  no  interpreta- 
tion which  does  not  necessitate  this  view. 

But  is  not  this  idea  of  a  morally  obligated  God  un- 
critical and  indefensible  philosophically?  We  think 
not.  Analogy  is  the  only  way  in  which  we  can  think 
at  all  of  those  realities  which  transcend  the  limits  of 
our  human  experience.  We  really  have  to  take  our 
choice  between  thinking  of  God  in  the  terms  of  our 
finite  experience  and  not  thinking  of  him  at  all.  This 
is  abundantly  demonstrated  by  the  speculative  way  in 
which  we  are  bidden  to  think  of  God  by  the  disciples 
of  the  philosophy  of  the  Absolute. 

Speculative  Conception  of  God  Results  in  Practical 
Atheism.  We  are  told  that  we  must  not  conceive  God 
in  terms  either  of  the  subject  or  the  object,  since  the 
Divine  is  the  great  underlying  principle  which  unifies 
the  dualism  of  object  and  subject  in  all  finite  thought. 
God  is  to  be  conceived  as  "The  Unconditioned,"  "The 
Absolute,"  etc.,  which  practically  amounts  to  saying 
that  we  are  bidden  not  to  think  of  God  at  all  in  any 
terms  which  allow  a  moral  relationship  between  God 
and  men.  The  "Unconditioned,"  "The  Absolute,"  etc., 
of  pantheism  and  the  "Unknowable"  of  agnosticism 
are  of  equal  value  for  the  practical  purposes  of  the 
moral  and  religious  life.  And  that  value  is,  as  we 
have  seen,  just  about  zero.  We  have  noted  how  a  most 
fundamental  characteristic  of  religion  is  found  to  be 
the  feeling  of  moral  relationship  which  the  wor- 
shiper has  for  the  Divine  Being.  Without  this,  reli- 
gious feeling  cannot  long  be  sustained.  If  God  is 
thought  of,  in  agnostic  fashion,  as  the  Unknowable, 


168    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

religion  is  not  possible.  Even  the  feeling  of  reverence 
or  awe  which  Herbert  Spencer  would  allow  is  really 
impossible,  for  one  would  have  to  have  some  knowl- 
edge of  the  unknowable  as  the  ground  in  reason  for 
revering  him.  Even  a  vague  feeling  of  awe  would  be 
impossible  in  the  absence  of  all  knowledge  of  the  In- 
finite. And  so  it  has  always  turned  out  that  agnosti- 
cism soon  reduces  itself  to  practical  atheism.  And  if 
God  is  thought  of  in  pantheistic  fashion  as  the  "Abso- 
lute," religion  is  not  possible.  Religion  always  means 
some  sort  of  fellowship  between  God  and  the  wor- 
shiper. Now  it  is  very  evident  that  no  fellowship  is 
possible  with  the  "Unconditioned,"  even  though  we 
dignify  it  by  spelling  it  with  a  capital,  and  it  remains 
impossible  to  have  any  kind  of  feelings  such  as  grati- 
tude or  love  toward  "the  Absolute."  If  the  Infinite 
be  conceived  in  these  impersonal  terms,  then  religion 
becomes  just  as  impossible  as  it  is  in  the  case  of  the 
Divine  Unknowable  of  agnosticism.  This  is  why  pan- 
theism also  reduces  itself  to  practical  theism. 

But  we  are  dealing  with  the  problems  of  religious 
thought  from  the  standpoint  of  moral  values,  and  no 
criterion  of  truth  is  valid  which  takes  account  of  log- 
ical completeness  only  and  neglects  to  reckon  with  the 
moral  feelings  and  the  great  practical  values  of  the 
moral  life.  And  after  all  the  conception  of  God  as 
personal  is  entirely  rational  when  interpreted  iu 
terms  of  our  highest  moral  ideals.  For  this  reason  we 
choose  to  think  of  God  in  terms  of  our  own  life  rather 
than  to  allow  abstract  speculation  to  dictate  such  a 
dialectic  as  to  make  thought  about  God  practically 
impossible.  We  do  not  demur  at  anthropomorphisms 
provided  they  do  not  attribute  the  imperfections  of 


DIVINE  PERSONALITY  169 

our  humanity  to  the  Eternal.  To  think  of  God  in 
terms  of  all  that  is  purest  and  loftiest  in  our  expe- 
rience is  the  moral  limit  of  finite  thought  concerning 
the  Infinite.  Does  "Father"  best  express  the  true  re- 
lationship between  God  and  men,  even  as  Jesus  said? 
Then  the  relationship  must  be  one  of  mutual  moral 
obligation,  for  no  other  interpretation  of  "Father"  is 
possible  than  this.  In  human  life  we  most  surely 
recognize  the  solemn  obligation  of  the  parent  to  the 
child.  But  even  if  the  idea  of  a  morally  obligated 
God  may  seem  speculatively  uncritical  to  some,  we 
must  remember  that  the  human  soul  has  been  guided 
in  its  search  for  truth  far  more  by  its  deepest  feelings 
and  great  practical  needs  than  by  philosophical  specu- 
lation. Indeed,  religion  as  a  moral  power  does  not 
long  survive  the  attempts  to  trim  its  fundamental  con- 
ceptions down  to  the  size  and  form  demanded  by  crit- 
ical speculation.  The  practical  needs  of  life  are  found 
to  be  a  far  better  vindication  for  philosophical  belief 
than  the  demands  of  speculative  logic.  And  we  boldly 
affirm  in  the  name  of  good  philosophy  the  truth  that 
God  is  morally  obligated. 

God's  Limitations  Self-imposed.  But  the  moral  obliga- 
tions of  the  Creator  are,  however,  imposed  upon  him- 
self by  himself  for  moral  ends.  His  divine  will  gave 
us  life.  We  are  wholly  dependent  upon  him ;  we  can- 
not therefore  think  of  him  as  without  responsibility 
toward  us.  "In  him  we  live,  and  move,  and  have  our 
being."  We  may  consistently  think  of  God  as  condi- 
tioned, provided  we  remember  that  the  conditions  are 
not  imposed  upon  him,  but  are  from  his  own  will. 
Thus  the  unity  of  the  Divine  Nature  is  not  destroyed 
in  our  thinking,  and  we  have  a  personal  conception  of 


170  FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

God  full  of  warmth  and  vitality  instead  of  a  cold,  log- 
ical abstraction.  The  principal  reasons,  then,  why 
Ave  as  Christians  should  think  of  God  as  personal  are 
not  speculative  but  practical,  and  the  best  philosophy 
of  to-day  recognizes  that  the  practical  demands  of  the 
moral  and  religious  life  are  an  ample  justification  for 
any  belief  which  is  not  inconsistent  with  the  great 
body  of  truth  already  won.  We  demand  the  right, 
therefore,  in  the  name  of  all  the  interests  of  our  per- 
sonal, moral  life  to  think  of  God.  And  when  we 
think  of  God,  our  own  experience  will  give  us  the 
forms.  The  noblest  and  best  aspirations  of  the  human 
spirit  are  indeed  intimations  of  the  moral  grandeur 
of  the  heart  of  God.  Robert  Browning  has  expressed 
this  truth  in  the  noble  poem  "Saul."  David  stands 
beholding  the  unspeakable  loneliness  and  depression 
of  the  king  and  his  heart  goes  out  in  love  and  noble 
sympathy.  If  he  could  only  help  him  now  in  all  his 
suffering,  how  gladly  he  would.  And  in  what  his  own 
sympathetic  heart  feels  with  all  his  helplessness  to 
relieve,  David  sees  a  revelation  of  the  very  heart  of 
God. 

"I  believe  it!     'Tis  thou,  God,  that  givest,  'tis  I  who  receive: 
In  the  first  is  the  last,  in  thy  will  is  my  power  to  believe. 
See  the  King — I  would  help  him,  but  cannot;  the  wishes  fall 

through. 
Could  I  wrestle  to  raise  him  from  sorrow,  grow  poor  to  enrich, 
To  fill  up  his  life,  starve  my  own  out,  I  would — knowing  which 
I  would  know  that  my  service  is  perfect. 
Oh,  speak  through  me  now! 
Would  I  suffer  for  him  that  I  love? 
So  would'st  thou — so  wilt  thou!" 

Divine  Personality  the  only  Basis  of  Religion.     Chris- 
tianity makes  religion  a  very  personal  matter.     At 


DIVINE  PERSONALITY  171 

the  heart  of  the  Christian  revelation  stands  the  tre- 
mendous assurance  that  the  Infinite  Personal  Spirit 
— the  Eternal  God  our  Divine  Father — enters  into  fel- 
lowship with  the  finite  spirits  of  men.  Jesus  simply 
assumed  in  all  his  teaching  about  God  the  very  high- 
est attributes  of  the  Divine  Personality.  He  told 
men  that  God  their  heavenly  Father  was  concerned 
about  all  the  interests  of  their  lives,  that  he  loves 
them,  and  that  therefore  they  may  feel  that  perfect 
confidence  and  trust  in  him  which  will  save  them 
from  the  friction  and  worry  of  life.  The  apostle  Paul 
taught  that  God's  Spirit  making  himself  known  to 
our  spirits  reveals  to  us  the  great  fact  that  we  are  his 
children.  And  from  Jesus  Christ  men  have  learned 
to  call  God  by  that  dear  word  of  human  speech — 
Father.  From  first  to  last  the  Bible  tells  us  of  a 
God  in  communication  and  fellowship  with  men. 

The  personal  conception  of  God  is  the  only  one 
which  makes  a  vital  religion  possible.  Hours  come 
in  the  lives  of  men  when,  if  their  religion  is  to  bring 
them  comfort  and  moral  strength,  they  must  feel  cer- 
tain that  God  is  more  than  infinite  wisdom  and 
infinite  power.  The  deep-souled  apostle  summed  up 
the  nature  of  God  in  the  words  "God  is  Love."  The 
highest  power  of  human  personality  is  the  power  of 
affection.  Christianity  teaches  that  there  is  an  In- 
finite Heart  back  of  the  universe.  Christ  bade  men 
look  up  to  the  Eternal  God  in  confidence  as  to  one 
who  loves  them  with  tender  compassion,  and  call  him 
Father ! 

In  the  last  analysis  the  truth  of  the  personality  of 
God  is  vindicated  in  the  personal  experience  of  men. 
There  have  been  multitudes  in  every  age  who  have 


172  FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

entered  deeply  into  the  life  of  religious  thought  and 
feeling  and  who  have  abundantly  testified  that  fellow- 
ship with  God  was  to  them  a  very  real  experience. 
The  influence  of  one  human  spirit  upon  another  is  a 
common  experience  of  our  daily  lives.  Why,  then, 
should  not  the  great  Infinite  Spirit  make  himself 
known  in  personal  fellowship  with  the  spirits  of  men? 


CHAPTER  VII 
CONCEPTIONS  OF  THE  DIVINE  ACTIVITY 

The  Christian  conception  of  God,  then,  is  that  of 
the  Infinite  Being— the  Ground  of  all  existence.  For 
reasons  which  we  have  just  considered,  this  Infinite 
Being  must  be  conceived  as  personal.  It  is  only  as 
we  think  of  God  as  personal  that  any  place  is  found 
for  religion.  For  the  underlying  thought  of  God  as 
impersonal,  with  whom  it  is  impossible  to  enter  into 
fellowship,  leads  inevitably  to  an  outcome  which  is 
practically  atheism. 

God's  Being  Manifested  in  His  Activity.  God  being  a 
Person  makes  himself  known  through  his  activity.  In 
his  activity  we  have  a  revelation  of  what  God  is. 
Where,  then,  must  we  look  for  evidences  of  the  divine 
activity?  We  shall  discover  that  the  correct  answer 
to  that  question  is,  We  must  look  everywhere.  The  old 
formal  "proofs"  of  the  existence  of  God  give  place 
therefore  to  the  recognition  of  evidences  of  Divine 
activity  in  the  world  of  nature  and  the  world  of 
human  life.  In  subsequent  chapters  we  are  to  con- 
sider those  various  fields  in  which  there  is  reason  to 
believe  the  divine  activity  has  been  and  is  being  mani- 
fested. In  nature,  in  history,  in  the  growing  moral 
consciousness  of  men  everywhere,  and  in  the  religious 
experience  of  the  individual  heart  we  find  convincing 
evidence  of  the  universal  presence  of  God.    It  remains 

173 


174    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

for  us  now  to  consider  the  two  ways  of  regarding 
God's  relation  to  the  world.  They  are  the  two  car- 
dinal doctrines  of  Theism — the  two  fundamental  ways 
of  regarding  the  divine  activity  as  it  has  been  revealed 
in  nature  and  human  life.  These  are  known  as  im- 
manence and  transcendence. 

1.  Transcendence 

Meaning  of  Transcendence.  In  transcendence  we  have 
the  idea  of  the  origin  and  control  of  a  thing  by  an 
activity  or  force  the  source  of  which  lies  outside  the 
thing  originated  or  controlled.  Thus,  for  example, 
the  inventor  and  maker  of  a  complicated  machine  has 
called  that  machine  into  existence  through  his  crea- 
tive thought  and  activity.  It  performs  the  work 
planned.  Its  activity  is  in  no  sense  independent,  but 
every  part  and  movement  represents  the  planning  and 
work  of  its  builder.  But  the  builder  of  the  machine 
may  journey  far  away  from  it.  Still  that  machine 
works  on.  In  case  of  disarrangement  of  its  parts  it 
may  become  necessary  to  send  for  the  maker  and  again 
the  same  planning  and  skillfully  directed  activity  may 
be  needed  before  the  machine  resumes  its  normal  con- 
dition. But  it  is  to  be  noted  that  while  the  machine 
is  a  constant  expression  of  the  purpose  and  power  of 
its  builder,  we  think  of  the  builder  and  the  machine 
as  separate.  The  builder  is  not  thought  of  as  in  the 
machine.  While  the  whole  machine  expresses  the  pur- 
poses of  the  builder,  still  we  think  of  the  machine  as 
operating  with  a  certain  independence  of  its  builder. 
This  is  the  transcendent  way  of  regarding  action. 
The  builder  transcends,  that  is,  stands  above  his 
machine. 


DIVINE  ACTIVITY  175 

For  a  long  time  this  was  the  prevailing  form  in 
Western  thought  of  conceiving  God's  relation  to  the 
universe.  A  traditional  theology  taught  that  divine 
creation  took  place  at  a  particular  point  in  past  time. 
God's  creative  activity  was  largely  confined  to  the 
"six  days  of  creation."  These  "days"  were  long  in- 
terpreted by  Christian  thinkers  precisely  as  their 
Jewish  authors  had  intended — days  of  the  regular 
length  of  time.  When  scientific  thought  began  to  cast 
discredit  upon  this  way  of  understanding  the  creative 
days,  a  modification  took  place.  The  "days"  now  ap- 
peared as  geologic  ages,  of  almost  any  length  found 
necessary,  and  vast  labor  was  expended  in  showing 
how  the  ancient  records  anticipated  the  conclusions 
of  modern  science. 

Eesulting  View  of  Creation.  Now,  the  point  to  be 
borne  in  mind  is  this :  Under  the  exclusive  domination 
of  the  idea  of  transcendence,  God's  relation  to  the 
universe  was  conceived  as  similar  to  that  of  the 
builder  and  the  machine  in  our  illustration.  God 
created  the  world.  But  the  transcendent  conception 
regarded  God's  creative  activity  as  confined  to  a  par- 
ticular part  of  past  time.  It  makes  no  difference 
whether  we  say  a  week  or  a  million  years.  The  tran- 
scendent conception  regarded  creation  as  something 
which  took  place  rather  than  something  which  is  al- 
ways taking  place.  God  was  thought  of  as  having 
planned  the  whole  universe  with  infinite  wisdom.  He 
created  it  in  accordance  with  his  perfect  plans.  Crea- 
tion was  variously  conceived.  One  idea  was  that  God 
created  all  the  world  of  inorganic  existences,  vegeta- 
tion and  animal  life,  with  their  infinite  varieties  and 
species,  "out  of  nothing."    It  must  be  said  that  crude 


176    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

as  this  idea  seeins,  it  is  logical  in  the  sense  that  it  does 
not  attempt  to  explain  creation  or  to  furnish  a  recipe 
for  it,  but  frankly  confesses  the  impenetrable  mystery 
of  God's  activities.  Another  conception,  cruder  than 
the  first,  was  that  God  somehow  made  things  out  of  a 
material  which  was  already  in  existence.  This  has 
been  ridiculed  as  the  "carpenter  theory"  and  deserves 
the  reproach.  Its  hopeless  weakness  is  that  it  sets 
some  sort  of  material  existence  over  against  God  in 
an  irreconcilable  dualism.  This  idea  survived,  in  a 
rehabilitated  form,  in  the  conception  of  "matter"  as 
eternal.  This  doctrine,  while  it  seemed  much  more 
respectable  because  of  its  scientific  dress  and  associa- 
tions, was  philosophically  just  as  uncritical  as  any 
crude  theology  which  taught  that  God  had  to  have 
stuff  at  hand  to  work  with. 

Leads  to  False  Idea  of  Nature's  Independence.  But  how- 
ever creation  was  conceived,  the  important  thing 
about  the  transcendent  view  of  the  divine  activity  is 
that  God  did  create  the  universe  at  some  period  in 
past  time.  He  created  it  on  an  infinite  plan  and  en- 
dowed it  with  all  the  forces  needed  to  keep  it  going 
according  to  the  plan.  Under  the  influence  of  this 
conception  the  universe  soon  gained  a  kind  of  inde- 
pendence of  God.  He  is  above  the  universe.  He  is  also 
"outside"  it,  in  the  sense  that  after  he  has  completed 
it  according  to  his  perfect  plan,  it  is  thought  to  be 
capable  of  running  as  a  vast  mechanism  with  a  cer- 
tain independence  of  its  own.  From  time  to  time  it  is 
conceivable  that  its  maker  might  step  in  and  readjust 
or  rearrange — giving  fresh  evidence  of  his  power. 
These  are  the  "supernatural"  events.  But  for  the  most 
part  things  run  along  as  they  were  originally  planned. 


DIVINE  ACTIVITY  177 

This  is  the  world's  activity  according  to  the  "natural" 
law. 

It  was,  of  course,  inevitable  that  under  this  way  of 
regarding  God's  relation  to  the  universe,  men  should 
come  in  time  to  regard  the  universe  as  able  to  get 
along  fairly  well  without  subsequent  attention  from 
its  Maker.  The  "mechanism  of  the  universe"  was 
God's  work,  and  it  was  perfectly  done.  Why  then, 
any  need  of  supposing  that  it  required  his  later  atten- 
tions? Indeed,  so  dominant  did  the  idea  of  nature  as 
a  complete  mechanism  become  that  the  Maker's  subse- 
quent "attentions"  came  to  be  regarded  by  the  mate- 
rialistic spirit  of  the  time  as  altogether  superfluous 
interferences.  Comte  has  expressed  this  feeling  when 
he  uttered  the  idea,  as  uncritical  as  it  was  irreverent, 
that  modern  science  was  gaining  so  large  an  insight 
into  nature  and  would  soon  have  so  great  a  control 
of  her  forces,  that  the  time  would  come  when  we  might 
"conduct  God  to  the  frontiers  of  the  universe  and  bow 
him  out  with  thanks  for  his  provisional  services." 

Thus  we  have  traced  in  brief  outline  what  the  tran- 
scendent way  of  conceiving  God's  relation  to  the  uni- 
verse really  is  and  what  it  involves.  Emphasis  upon 
transcendence  to  the  neglect  of  the  conception  of 
immanence  leads  to  a  false  naturalism,  that  is,  to  the 
exalting  of  nature  into  a  position  of  independence. 
Thus  transcendence  gave  great  opportunity  to  urge 
that,  while  creative  activity  may  have  been  needed  in 
the  past,  there  is  not  so  much  need  for  it  in  the  present. 
It  was  easy  for  men  dominated  by  the  materialistic 
spirit  in  science  to  exalt  nature  to  the  position  of  a 
complete  and  independent  system.  Forgetting  the 
great  moral  issues  of  life,  God  was  identified  with  the 


178    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

forces  with  which  (as  an  earlier  theology  had  taught) 
he  had  endowed  the  world.  These  forces  were  general- 
ized and  the  abstract  conception  of  "Force"  or  "En- 
ergy" emerged.  This  was  urged  as  the  sufficient 
Ground  of  all  existence.  And  thus  transcendence  be- 
came a  fertile  breeding  ground  for  materialism. 

This  great  gust  of  naturalism  with  its  atheistic  im- 
plications which  swept  over  the  thought-world  during 
the  middle  of  the  last  century  was  the  logical  conse- 
quence of  the  extreme  transcendent  doctrine  which 
had  prevailed  in  theology  since  the  days  of  Augustine. 
The  way  out  was  found  through  the  modern  philos- 
ophy of  personal  idealism.  Idealism,  from  Kant  to 
Hegel,  had  grown  more  and  more  speculative  and  ab- 
stract. Its  final  outcome  in  the  philosophy  of  the 
Absolute  was  both  agnostic  and  atheistic.  Some  will 
object  to  the  last  adjective  and  urge  that  we  ought, 
rather,  to  say  pantheistic.  But,  as  before  remarked, 
a  consistent  pantheism,  so  far  as  its  outcome  for  the 
practical  interests  of  morals  and  religion  is  con- 
cerned, is  the  equivalent  of  atheism. 

But  under  Lotze  idealism  found  a  new  lease  of  life. 
The  significant  emphasis  of  Lotze  was  teleology,  that 
is,  the  philosophy  which  recognized  purpose  as  the 
final  ground  of  activity.  And  purpose  when  its  impli- 
cations were  founded  meant  personality.  In  the  phi- 
losophy of  the  last  few  decades  personality  has  been 
recognized  as  the  key  to  much  which  has  been  obscure 
and  irreconcilable.  The  modern  philosophy  of  per- 
sonality together  with  the  wide  acceptance  which  evo- 
lution won  has  demanded  a  recasting  of  theism.  And 
in  the  reconstruction  two  great  fundamental  concep- 
tions   have    emerged.      They    are    personality    and 


DIVINE  ACTIVITY  179 

immanence.  We  have  considered  some  essential 
matters  touching  personality.  It  now  remains  for  us 
to  consider  its  corollary,  divine  immanence.  We 
turn,  therefore,  from  that  way  of  regarding  God's 
activity  and  relation  to  the  world  known  as  tran- 
scendence to  that  way  known  as  immanence. 

2.  Immanence 

Meaning  of  Immanence.  If  we  have  found  a  fitting 
analogy  for  transcendence  in  the  illustration  of  the 
machine  and  its  maker,  we  shall  find  an  equally  fitting 
illustration  of  immanence  in  the  human  body  and 
the  living  spirit  which  animates  it.  Speaking  in  a 
rough  and  familiar  way,  we  may  say  that  the  mind 
is  "in  the  body,"  but  as  soon  as  we  begin  to  subject 
this  statement  to  criticism  we  find  that  any  attempt 
to  locate  the  mind  spatially  involves  a  swarm  of 
difficulties.  Where  is  the  mind  in  the  body?  Is  it 
located  equally  all  over  the  body?  Is  it  in  the  foot 
as  well  as  in  the  brain?  Revising  the  statement  that 
the  mind  is  in  the  body,  shall  we  say,  rather,  that  the 
mind  is  in  the  brain?  Does  a  person  think  with  the 
brain?  A  little  knowledge  of  physiology  tells  us  that 
even  though  the  brain  remained  intact  but  communi- 
cation were  cut  off  from  the  brain  to  the  myriad  nerve 
ends  upon  the  surface  of  the  body  so  that  no  stimulus 
could  find  its  way  to  the  brain,  there  could  be  no 
thought,  no  consciousness.  Shall  we  revise  again 
and  say  that  a  person  thinks  with  his  nervous  system, 
of  which  of  course  the  brain  is  an  important  part? 
Where,  then,  is  the  center  of  thought? 

God  "In  the  World"  Not  Spatially  but  Dynamically. 
There  is  only  one  answer,  which  is  that  the  attempt  to 


180    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

localize  thinking  and  to  find  a  place  spatially  for  the 
mind  is  uncritical.  The  mind  is  not  "in  the  body" 
in  a  spatial  sense  but  in  a  dynamic  sense.  This  means 
that  the  mind  animates  the  body  and  controls  it.  The 
various  voluntary  movements  of  the  body  are  a  con- 
stant expression  of  the  control  of  the  mind.  We 
promptly  refer  every  movement  of  the  normal  body 
(except  those  involuntary  movements  necessary  to  its 
preservation)  to  the  mind  as  its  ground.  One  may 
speak  of  the  guilty  hand  of  an  assassin  as  having 
committed  a  foul  deed,  but  it  is  only  a  loose  and 
popular  form  of  speech.  For  we  know  perfectly  well 
that  every  movement  of  the  hand,  and  tongue,  and 
other  members  may  be  traced  back  through  the  phys- 
ical mechanism  and  finds  no  ground  or  final  explana- 
tion until  we  reach  the  purpose  of  the  person  himself. 
We  used  to  hear  it  said  in  religious  phraseology  that 
we  "have  eternal  spirits."  But,  of  course,  the  truth 
is  not  that  our  real  life  is  material — that  we  are  bodies 
and  have  spirits,  but,  rather,  that  we  are  spirits  and 
have  bodies.  That  mysterious  interaction  between  the 
body  and  the  spirit  by  which  the  body  is  animated 
and  controlled  is  our  best  analogy  for  enabling  us 
to  understand  the  relation  of  God's  activity  to  the 
world.  The  very  name  "immanence"  contains  a  figure 
of  speech.  We  must  warn  ourselves  that  the  preposi- 
tion "in"  must  never  be  understood  spatially  but  al- 
ways dynamically.  Keeping  this  caution  in  mind,  we 
make  bold  to  say  that  God  is  always  in  his  world. 
An  exploration  of  the  meaning  of  this  statement 
will  amount  to  some  exposition  of  the  divine  imma- 
nence. 

The  older  view  of  nature  as  a  vast  mechanism  has 


DIVINE  ACTIVITY  181 

given  place  to  the  modern  view  of  nature  as  an  organ- 
ism. And  along  with  this,  the  conception  of  God's 
relation  to  the  world  has  undergone  a  corresponding 
transformation.  Christian  theism  no  longer  tries  to 
represent  God  as  the  Maker  of  the  world  standing 
above  it  or  apart  from  it,  so  to  speak.  Carlyle  scorn- 
fully repudiated  this  idea  of  "an  absentee  God  sitting 
idle  ever  since  the  first  Sabbath  at  the  outside  of  the 
universe  and  seeing  it  go."  God  is  in  the  world 
dynamically;  that  is,  he  is  the  abiding  ground  of  the 
world,  and  his  will  and  activity  are  the  ultimate 
source  of  all  the  world's  myriad  and  harmonious 
forces.  The  great  ongoing  processes  of  nature  are  not 
blindly  mechanical.  The  wonderful  adjustments  and 
adaptations  to  outcomes  indicate  that  thought  lies  at 
their  foundation,  and  not  only  thought  but  will.  And 
so  we  say  that  all  nature  is  a  constant  expression  of 
the  purpose  and  power  of  God.  God  is  "in"  nature 
in  this  sense,  just  as  the  living  spirit  is  "in"  the  body. 
His  thought  and  purposeful  activity  condition  and 
control  it. 

This  great  conception  is  the  only  tenable  view  for 
modern  thinking.  It  absolutely  forbids  us  to  set  up 
nature  as  in  any  sense  independent  of  God.  The  older 
transcendent  view  lent  itself  easily  to  this  fallacy. 
What  need  for  God,  after  the  world  had  once  been  per- 
fectly created  and  endowed  with  all  the  forces  needed 
for  its  operation?  Inevitably  there  crept  in  the  false 
idea  that  such  a  universe  could  run,  for  a  while  at 
least,  independently  of  its  Creator.  The  forces  of 
the  universe  were  taken  as  sufficient  ground  of  the 
natural  changes,  and  natural  law,  it  was  fancied, 
offered  all  needed  explanation.    But  these  uncritical 


182    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

notions  no  longer  form  a  part  of  respectable  modern 
thinking. 

Meaning  of  Natural  Law.  Natural  law  explains  noth- 
ing. A  scientist  who  should  refer  a  change  to  a 
natural  law,  and  then  fancy  he  had  given  adequate 
causal  explanation,  would  be  discredited  as  a  thinker 
to-day,  for  we  know  that  the  "law"  is  only  an  exact 
statement  of  the  manner  in  which  a  force  or  forces 
operate  under  certain  conditions.  Nature  is  no  inde- 
pendent system.  God  is  the  ground  of  the  universe. 
His  purpose  alone  explains  its  forces.  The  laws  of 
nature  are,  then,  but  formulations  of  the  constant 
and  more  or  less  familiar  fashion  in  which  divine 
activity  is  manifested. 

Creation  is  the  Eternal  Manifestation  of  Divine  Energy. 
When  this  view  of  God's  relation  to  the  world  as 
immanent  takes  possession  of  our  thinking,  we  find 
that  our  conception  of  the  divine  activity  in  creation 
may  have  to  undergo  change.  "In  the  beginning  God 
created  the  heavens  and  the  earth."  Most  of  us  were 
taught  that  this  means  that  the  world  was  created  at 
some  point  or  period  in  past  time.  But  if  God  is  in 
his  universe  to-day,  then  every  activity  in  nature  is  a 
present  expression  of  the  creative  activity  of  God, 
and  every  day  is  a  day  of  creation.  Creation  is,  there- 
fore, a  constant  and  ever  ongoing  manifestation  of  the 
power  of  God  and  not  a  manifestation  of  that  power 
once  completed  in  past  time.  We  should  not  say, 
therefore,  "God  created  the  world,"  unless  we  add 
what  is  equally  true  that  God  is  still  creating  the 
world.  Science  teaches  us  that  the  great  day  of  crea- 
tion is  still  on.  The  student  of  the  earth  sciences 
knows  that  the  mighty  changes  through  which  the 


DIVINE  ACTIVITY  183 

earth  has  passed  are  not  all  complete.  Geologic- 
change  is  still  taking  place  and  will  probably  continue 
to  go  on  for  ages  to  come.  The  biologist  views  the 
world  as  a  continual  rebirth  of  life  in  its  myriad 
forms.  God  did  not  create  a  few  primitive  organ- 
isms at  the  beginning  in  order  to  get  the  world  of 
organic  life  well  started.  His  creative  activity  is 
seen  in  the  mysterious  birth  of  every  new  organism — 
yes,  in  the  genesis  of  every  new  cell.  The  Divine 
Creator  is  ever  at  work  in  a  world  that  is  never  done 
being  born. 

This  conception  of  God's  immanent  activity  in  the 
world  enables  Christian  faith  to  hold  to  the  belief  that 
the  world  is  the  result  of  divine  creation,  and  at  the 
same  time  accept  the  great  truth  of  evolution.  The 
hostility  to  evolution  which  formerly  prevailed  among 
Christian  people,  and  still  remains  to  some  extent, 
rested  upon  the  supposition  that  those  things  which 
take  place  in  the  world  through  "natural"  processes 
are  not  the  result  of  God's  creative  activity,  his  action 
being  thought  as  altogether  supernatural.  But  this 
kind  of  distinction  between  God's  work  as  super- 
natural and  nature's  work  as  natural  is  wholly  erro- 
neous. It  rests  upon  the  old  fallacy  that  nature  is  an 
independent  system  of  things.  But  when  our  thought 
is  once  dominated  by  the  truth  that  nature  is  not  and 
never  was  in  any  sense  independent  of  God,  then  we 
begin  to  see  that  a  "natural"  event  is  quite  as  much  an 
expression  of  the  divine  activity  as  what  we  may  call 
a  "supernatural"  event. 

The  hopelessly  uncritical  question,  What  is  there 
for  God  to  do,  if  things  originate  in  a  natural  way? 
needs  no  answer,  for  the  conception  of  an  ever-present 


184  FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

God  does  not  permit  us  to  think  for  a  moment  that  the 
"natural  way"  in  which  things  may  originate  re- 
quires one  whit  less  of  the  creative  energy  of  God. 
As  John  Fiske  says,  "Once  really  adopt  the  concep- 
tion of  an  everpresent  God,  without  whom  no  sparrow 
falls  to  the  ground,  and  it  becomes  self-evident  that 
the  law  of  gravitation  is  but  an  expression  of  a  par- 
ticular mode  of  divine  action.  And  what  is  thus  true 
of  one  law  is  true  of  all  laws"  (Outlines  of  Cosmic 
Philosophy,  Vol.  II,  p.  428).  From  the  standpoint  of 
the  Christian  conception  of  God  we  may  say,  then, 
that  the  law  of  evolution  enables  us  to  trace  the 
manner  in  which  divine  creation  takes  place  in  the 
realm  of  organic  life. 

But  there  is  a  final  scruple  concerning  evolution 
which  lingers.  It  might  be  freely  allowed  that  we 
may  hold  to  divine  creation  and  yet  think  of  the  origin 
of  the  human  body — man's  physical  organism — as 
originating  in  what  we  call  a  natural  way.  But  what 
shall  we  say  of  that  part  of  man  which  differentiates 
him  from  the  brute  creation?  Man  is  a  soul.  Where 
does  the  soul  come  from?  The  answer  must  be,  of 
course,  We  come  from  God.  "In  him  we  live,  and 
move,  and  have  our  being."  But  the  question  re- 
mains, How  are  we  to  think  of  the  soul  as  coining  from 
God?  It  would  carry  us  too  far  into  the  field  of  meta- 
physics were  we  to  take  up  this  question  in  any 
thoroughgoing  way.  And  after  we  had  said  all  there 
is  to  say,  the  mystery  would  still  be  there,  the  same 
mystery,  by  the  way,  which  meets  us  when  we  try  to 
construe  the  origin  of  life  anywhere,  the  mystery  of 
creation.  The  creation  of  life  is  an  act  of  the  Infinite, 
and  as  such  cannot  be  grasped  in  any  complete  way 


DIVINE  ACTIVITY  185 

by  our  finite  intelligence.  Biological  science  has 
taught  us  how  to  observe  the  various  stages  in  the 
growth  of  the  human  body,  and  in  a  crude  and  partial 
way  we  are  thus  permitted  to  trace  the  wonderful 
work  of  the  Creator.  But  no  biological  science  ever 
professes  to  reveal  to  us  the  ultimate  origin  of  life. 
And  even  though  the  tracing  of  stages  in  the  growth 
of  a  soul  is  impossible,  we  must  believe  that,  however 
the  soul  develops,  the  process  is  the  work  of  the  ever 
present  Creator. 

This  teaching  of  a  personal  God  immanent  in  his 
world  is  not  new.  It  is  voiced  again  and  again  by  the 
poets  and  prophets  of  the  Old  Testament.  But,  of 
course,  they  did  not  express  the  truth  in  philosophical 
phrase  but  always  in  the  figurative  language  of  devo- 
tion. The  early  thought  of  the  Hebrews  localized  the 
power  of  Jehovah.  But  under  the  instruction  of  those 
mighty  religious  teachers  the  prophets  the  Hebrew 
conception  of  Jehovah  as  a  national  divinity  expanded 
to  that  of  Jehovah  as  the  Lord  of  all  the  earth — the 
Universal  Presence.  In  one  of  the  later  psalms  we 
find  the  familiar  and  sublime  declaration  of  the  uni- 
versal presence  of  God. 

Whither  shall  I  go  from  thy  spirit  or  whither  shall  I  flee  from 
thy  presence? 

If  I  ascend  up  into  heaven,  thou  art  there;  if  I  make  my  bed 
in  hell,  behold,  thou  art  there: 

If  I  take  the  wings  of  the  morning,  and  dwell  in  the  uttermost 
parts  of  the  sea; 

Even  there  shall  thy  hand  lead  me,  and  thy  right  hand  shall 
hold  me. 

If  I  say,  Surely  the  darkness  shall  cover  me;  even  the  night 
shall  be  light  about  me. 

Yea,  the  darkness  hideth  not  from  thee;  but  the  night  shineth 
as  the  day;  the  darkness  and  the  light  are  both  alike  to  thee. 


186  FOUNDATIONS  OP  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

We  have  thus  set  forth  the  most  important  impli- 
cations of  the  immanent  way  of  conceiving  the  divine 
activity.  But  while  the  older  transcendence  which 
thinks  of  God  as  outside  the  world  is  rejected,  we 
should  not  forget  that  there  must  remain  an  impor- 
tant element  of  transcendence  in  the  theistic  view. 
The  human  spirit  is  dynamically  in  the  body  animat- 
ing and  controlling  it,  but  there  is  a  viewpoint  from 
which  we  must  say  that  the  spirit  is  greater  than  the 
body — it  transcends  it.  There  is  an  analogous  way 
in  which  we  must  think  of  God  as  greater  than  the 
world,  and  therefore  transcending  it. 

Personality  Saves  Immanence  from  Pantheism.  Panthe- 
istic idealism  expounds  immanence  in  such  a  fashion 
as  really  to  identify  God  and  the  world.  And  this 
means  not  only  the  world  of  nature  but  the  world  of 
human  spirits.  Indeed,  the  pantheistic  idealist  con- 
ceives the  human  spirit  as  but  a  part  of  the  spirit  of 
the  universe  differentiated  for  the  time  by  the  limita- 
tions of  time  and  space. 

But  personal  idealism  is  saved  from  this  view, 
which,  it  will  be  seen,  implies  the  impossibility  of  any- 
thing like  individual  freedom.  The  basic  notion  of 
personality  demands  that  we  think  of  the  impersonal 
universe  as  dependent  upon  the  personal  God.  While 
God  is  continually  conditioning  the  world  through 
his  activity  manifested  in  it  and  through  it,  the  world 
in  no  way  imposes  conditions  upon  God.  His  con- 
sciousness rises  above  that  order  of  things  which  is 
limited  by  time  and  space.  He  is  the  Intelligent 
Ground  of  the  world.  The  only  unity  the  world  has 
in  actual  existence  rests  upon  the  fact  that  it  is  con- 
stantly dependent  upon  the  thought  and  will  of  God. 


DIVINE  ACTIVITY  187 

It  is  an  age-long  story — the  way  in  which  mankind 
came  into  possession  of  that  greatest  of  all  possible 
conceptions:  the  idea  of  God.  It  began  in  the  dim 
twilight  of  the  primeval  ages,  when  the  souls  of  men 
reached  out  in  rude  worship  toward  the  spirit  of  the 
Eternal,  and  when  we  may  well  believe  also  that  God 
on  his  part  began  to  lead  men's  thoughts  toward  him- 
self. That  twilight  grew  at  last  into  the  noontide  of 
divine  revelation  and  that  noontide  is  seen  in  the  life 
and  teachings  of  Jesus  Christ  revealing  as  they  did 
the  truth — that  the  Infinite  and  Eternal  God,  the 
Maker  of  the  heavens  and  earth,  is  the  Divine  Father 
of  men;  that  he  has  a  heart  of  compassion;  that  he 
loves  men  as  his  children ;  that  he  leads,  teaches,  and 
forgives  them,  in  order  to  win  them  to  himself. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  REVELATION  OF  GOD  IN  NATURE 

Meaning  of  Revelation  in  Nature.  To  say  that  nature 
reveals  God  must  be  taken  to  mean  that  a  study  of 
many  of  the  facts  of  nature  convinces  us  that  the  only 
way  we  can  interpret  these  facts  is  through  a  belief 
that  back  of  them,  as  their  ground,  lie  the  thought  aud 
will  of  a  personal  Intelligence.  And  what  are  some  of 
these  facts?  They  are,  for  the  most  part,  those  which 
appear  to  indicate  plan  or  purpose.  There  are  a  great 
many  wonderfully  beautiful  adjustments  in  organic 
nature,  before  which  we  stand  in  almost  speechless 
admiration.  Nature  is  found  to  be  a  great  rational 
order.  One  of  the  postulates  or  underlying  assump- 
tions of  all  investigation  is  the  order  and  intelligi- 
bility of  the  universe.  We  know  that  nature  is  intel- 
ligible because  we  find  that  when  we  apply  our  reason 
to  its  various  activities  we  comprehend  them  to  some 
degree.  The  planets  and  other  heavenly  bodies  swing 
in  orbits  which  are  the  curves  obtained  by  the  sections 
of  a  cone.  Crystals  are  but  solid  geometry  done  in 
material  forms.  "God  understands  geometry,"  said 
Plato.  Science  is,  as  Huxley  wrote,  "the  discovery 
of  the  rational  order  that  pervades  the  universe." 
There  is  a  parallelism  between  the  activity  of  nature 
and  our  own  mental  activity.  The  laws  of  thought  are 
the  laws  of  the  cosmic  order. 

188 


GOD  IN  NATURE  189 

Adaptations  in  Nature.  But  the  particular  aspect  of 
Nature's  rationality  that  interests  us  at  this  point  is 
the  presentation  of  those  adaptations  which  certainly 
look  as  though  they  were  intended.  One  of  the  stand- 
ard arguments  of  theism  is  founded  on  the  fact  that 
there  exist  in  nature  those  adaptations  and  adjust- 
ments of  one  thing  to  another  which  the  mind  cannot 
interpret  except  by  affirming  that  the  outcome  result- 
ing from  such  adaptations  must  be  regarded  as  inten- 
tional. This  is  known  as  the  Argument  from  Design. 
In  this  argument  purpose  is  affirmed  as  the  only  prin- 
ciple sufficient  to  explain  the  facts.  The  cause  of  a 
watch  includes  all  the  agencies  through  which  it  was 
manufactured,  but  the  final  cause  or  purpose  of  a 
watch  is  to  tell  the  time  of  day.  And  we  have  not 
really  explained  the  watch  until  we  have  found  and 
affirmed  its  purpose.  And  in  like  manner  we  may 
trace  the  successive  stages  of  development  of  the  earth 
or  of  organic  forms  upon  it.  But  we  have  not  arrived 
at  any  full  and  satisfying  explanation  in  which  the 
mind  can  rest  until  we  have  asked  the  question 
"Why?"  and  found  an  answer. 

We  learn  that  there  is  a  vast  number  of  adaptations 
and  adjustments  in  the  world  of  organic  life.  Taking 
a  particular  case,  we  notice  the  result,  for  instance, 
that  the  eye  is  the  means  by  which  animals  see.  WTe 
study  the  structure  of  the  eye  and  conclude  that  no 
satisfying  explanation  of  its  structure  is  possible  until 
we  have  affirmed  that  such  wonderful  adaptation  of 
the  organ  to  surrounding  conditions  indicates  inten- 
tion, and  intention  means  purpose.  Of  course  the  pur- 
pose is  not  revealed  directly  in  things,  but  is  a  rational 
interpretation  to  which  the  mind  seems  to  be  driven 


190    FOUNDATIONS  OP  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

by  the  facts.  This  is  the  gist  of  the  argument  from 
design.  As  an  argument  it  has  received  the  careful 
consideration  of  the  greatest  minds.  Kant  regarded 
it  with  respect.  John  Stuart  Mill  considered  it  the 
only  argument  of  theism  which  carries  weight.  When 
the  argument  is  not  made  to  carry  too  heavy  a  load  it 
is  found  to  be  of  great  practical  value.  We  cannot 
take  the  time  to  enumerate  some  of  the  striking  adap- 
tations in  nature  which  seem  to  demand  purpose  as 
their  only  adequate  explanation.  They  will  be  found 
in  the  larger  works  which  expound  the  theistic  doc- 
trine.1 

Evolution  and  the  Design  Argument.  But  it  is  urged 
that  the  doctrine  of  evolution  greatly  weakens,  if 
indeed  it  does  not  destroy,  the  force  of  the  argument 
from  design.  We  are  admonished  that  the  perfection 
of  the  eye,  for  example  (a  favorite  illustration  of  the 
older  writers  on  theism ) ,  came  from  a  long  process  of 
natural  selection.  In  this  process  imperfections  were 
eliminated  because  the  animals  having  the  imperfect 
organs  failed  to  survive.  We  agree  to  this,  but 
still  hold  that  the  doctrine  of  natural  selection  in 
no  way  forbids  us  to  conclude  that  many  things  in 
nature  look  as  though  they  were  intended  to  serve 
certain  purposes — the  eye  to  see,  the  ear  to  hear,  and 
so  on.  It  is  true  that  the  argument  in  the  form  in 
which  it  used  to  be  urged  is  superseded.  We  may  no 
longer  think  of  the  eye  or  ear  or  any  other  part  of  the 
organism  as  an  individual  bit  of  creation,  in  which 
intelligence  wonderfully  anticipated  'and  made  provi- 
sion for  what  was  coming.    The  conception  of  design 


1  Janet's  Final  Causes  is  probably  the  most  thorough  exposition  of  the  argument  in 
its  more  modern  form. 


GOD  IN  NATURE  191 

is  applicable  not  to  particular  instances  of  creation, 
but  to  the  whole  creative  process  and  its  outcome. 
The  argument  from  design  can  no  longer  be  taken  to 
mean  that  there  is  special  contrivance  in  nature.  It 
points,  rather,  to  the  truth  that  Divine  Intelligence  is 
the  immanent  guiding  power  in  the  creative  process. 
Natural  selection  must  not  be  thought  of  as  furnish- 
ing its  own  motive  power.  It  only  describes  the  proc- 
ess by  which,  after  a  long  series  of  developments  by 
elimination,  certain  perfected  forms  remained.  And 
we  still  need  the  conception  of  an  underlying  purpose 
just  as  much  as  ever  to  enable  us  to  explain  the  mar- 
velous selections  and  rejections  which  resulted  so 
wonderfully.  There  can  be  in  truth  no  ultimate  ex- 
planation of  the  evolutionary  process  without  the 
thought  of  an  Infinite  Intelligence.  Nature  reveals 
not  impersonal  force,  but  God;  not  a  blind  uncon- 
scious power  working  mechanically,  but  a  living 
Person  whose  thought  and  will  are  the  ground  of  all 
the  marvelous  processes  described  by  science.  In 
nature,  then,  we  find  evidence  of  the  presence  of  God 
in  his  immanent  activity  directed  for  the  realization 
of  great  ends. 

Divine  Purpose  and  the  Problems  of  Providence — Con- 
clusion. Now,  all  this  proves  perfectly  manageable  to 
our  thought  and  clear  enough  so  long  as  we  continue 
to  look  upon  the  bright  side  of  nature.  But  we  are 
not  infrequently  brought  face  to  face  with  the  f act- 
that  nature  has  her  darker  aspects.  The  heavens 
declare  the  glory  of  God,  but  what  shall  be  said  of  the 
volcano  and  the  earthquake?  Marvelous  indeed  is  the 
industry  of  nature,  but  what  to  say  of  her  prodigality, 
not  to  say  profligacy,  in  creating  and  then  destroying 


192  FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

life  on  a  scale  so  vast  as  to  be  beyond  our  conception? 
We  speak  figuratively  of  nature,  as  though  "she"  did 
these  things,  but  an  affirmation  that  all  the  ongoing 
processes  of  nature  are  but  manifestations  of  the  ac- 
tivity of  the  immanent  Creator  stands.  We  have  said 
that  natural  selection  but  traces  the  method  of  God's 
creation.  Is  it  he  who  thus  sweeps  away  thousands 
of  the  less  favored  in  order  that  the  strongest  and 
most  perfect  may  survive?  What  shall  we  say  in  face 
of  what  seems  to  us  to  be  the  terrible  wastefulness  of 
the  methods  by  which  life  advances?  And  what  of  the 
many  agencies  of  destruction  which  seem  to  show  a 
striking  adaptation  to  the  end  they  serve.  The  fang 
of  the  rattlesnake  is  hardly  as  useful  as  the  udder  of 
the  cow,  but  it  is  certainly  as  perfectly  adapted  to  the 
end  for  which  it  appears  to  have  been  created.  When 
we  think  of  the  poisonous  plants,  the  cruel  talon  of 
the  eagle,  the  fang  of  the  poisonous  insect,  the  tornado, 
the  pathogenic  germs,  we  may  become  rather  less  vol- 
uble concerning  the  way  in  which  the  beneficence  of 
the  Creator  shines  forth  revealed  in  the  book  of 
nature.  We  begin  to  realize  that  we  stand  in  the 
presence  of  mystery.  The  atmosphere  through  which 
we  seek  a  revelation  of  God  is  not  always  clear. 

Two  things  are  worth  saying,  though  they  do  not 
dispel  the  mystery.  The  first  is  that  the  fuller  and 
more  exact  knowledge  of  nature  which  modern  science 
has  afforded  us  forbids  us  to  consider  particular  in- 
stances of  creative  activity  and  make  them  the  basis 
for  philosophical  (or  theological)  generalization. 
Knowledge  of  nature  often  compels  us  to  overhaul  our 
conception  of  what  may  or  may  not  be  the  divine 
will.     Here  we  meet  the  small-caliber  doctrines  of 


GOD  IN  NATUKE  193 

Divine  Providence.  It  is  natural'for  people  to  fancy 
that  things  which  turn  out  "to  'their  favor  are  provi- 
dential, while  misfortunes  which  bring  disappoint- 
ment, suffering  or  grief  are  "inscrutable  providences." 
That  all  suffering  is  evil  is  a  common  and  natural 
view,  but  one  to  which  Jesus  gave  no  countenance  and 
one  which  does  not  remain  in  the  presence  of  a  deeper 
spiritual  insight.  A  volcano  blows  off  and  nearby 
villages  are  overwhelmed.  Men  ask,  "Why  this  in- 
scrutable providence?-'  That  we  should  continue  to 
think  of  such  an  event  as  a  terrible  and  unmixed  evil 
is  perhaps  inevitable.  It  consoles  us  to  be  told  that  all 
these  people  would  soon  have  died  anyhow  only  when 
we  are  not  personally  concerned  in  the  disaster.  Men 
will  continue  to  ask  why  "inscrutable  providences" 
happen  when  they  ought  to  be  asking  other  questions. 
For  example,  "Why  will  men  persist  in  building  their 
homes  close  to  volcanoes?"  A  typhoid  epidemic  is 
often  not  an  "inscrutable 'providence,"  but  an  indica- 
tion of  lack  of  proper  vigilance  or  even  of  criminal 
negligence.  Why  are  steamship  companies  permitted 
to  rush  great  steamers  across  the  Atlantic  in  the 
Northern  courses  in  April  when  they  know  that  fog 
and  icebergs  are  frequent  in  that  part  of 'the  ocean? 
When  trains  crash  together  because  of  an  imperfect 
and  antiquated  system  of  signals  which  a  great  rail- 
road has  long  since  outgrown,  or  because  the  road  was 
found  to  be  overworking  its  men,  is  it  an  "inscrutable 
providence"?  When  we  realize  the  truth  that  many 
disasters  come  from  the  carelessness  or  greed  of  men, 
and  that  men  are  not  automata  whose  acts  are  de- 
termined from  without,  but  possessed  of  some  degree 
of  freedom,  then  we  do  not  have  to  make  such  efforts 


194  FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

at  pious  reconciliation  to  disasters  which  were  erro- 
neously taken  for  the  sovereign  will  of  God. 

But  the  greed  and  ignorance  and  carelessness  of 
men  do  not  explain  everything.  After  all  has  been 
urged,  there  remains  an  element  of  fearful  mystery 
in  some  natural  events.  But  how  often  the  question 
has  been  asked,  "But  why  does  not  God  interfere  and 
prevent  dreadful  disasters?"  We  do  not  know.  But 
we  do  know  that  it  is  infinitely  better  that  all  the 
forces  of  the  universe  should  remain  constant  rather 
than  that  they  should  be  intercepted  from  time  to 
time.  The  constancy  of  nature  is  one  of  the  mightiest 
revelations  of  the  wisdom  of  God.  The  force  of  gravi- 
tation must  never  be  suspended,  nor  must  the  atmos- 
pheric pressure  vary  to  any  great  degree.  If  these 
things  were  to  happen,  all  life  would  be  brought  to  an 
immediate  end  in  unspeakable  disaster.  Icebergs 
must  float.  If  water  did  not  expand  in  freezing  and 
ice  were  therefore  heavier  than  water,  it  would  not 
be  long  before  most  of  this  earth  would  be  wrapped  in 
heavy  shackles  of  ice  and  thereby  rendered  uninhabit- 
able. It  is  only  as  the  great  forces  of  nature  are  main- 
tained constantly  that  life  is  possible.  God  is  far  too 
wise  to  intercept  them.  The  uniformity  of  nature  is 
an  expression  of  the  wisdom  and  constancy  of  the 
divine  purpose.  We  repeat,  then,  that  the  teaching 
that  nature  reveals  the  purposes  of  God  must  be  taken 
not  with  reference  to  this  or  that  particular  instance, 
but  at  long  range.  Then,  and  then  only,  do  the  fitful 
and  broken  gleams  of  light  seem  continuous  enough 
to  afford  any  real  guidance  to  thought. 

The  other  thing  worth  saying  is  this:  that  if  we 
have  only  science  and  philosophy  to  live  by  we  shall 


GOD  IN  NATURE  195 

sometimes  find  ourselves  baffled  and  groping.  Amid 
the  mystery  and  perplexity  of  the  problem  of  suffer- 
ing there  is  but  little  light  from  reason  alone.  Here 
of  all  places  we  need  the  great  truth  of  religion  that 
we  must  walk  by  faith  and  not  by  sight.  The  best  that 
reason  and  faith  together  can  do  is  to  catch  gleams 
of  light  that  shine  through  clouds  which  are  often 
dark.  And  then  Faith  whispers  that  we  must  trust 
God  when  we  have  failed  to  understand  him,  for  he 
is  -our  Father.  Sometimes  we  may  feel  that  there 
are  as  many  things  in  nature  to  indicate  that  God  is 
indifferent  as  there 'are  to  teach  that  he  is  love;  but 
the  heart  that  has  come  to  know  God  in  fellowship  of 
the  spirit  will  not  find  it  impossible  to  cling  to  him 
in  trust  and  love,  even  under  those  conditions  when 
the  candle  of  reason  begins  to  flicker  and  give  forth 
a  feeble  light.  This  is  the  experience  of  all  who  have 
known  God,  even  though  they  have  failed  to  under- 
stand all  his  ways  in  the  world  about  us. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  REVELATION  OF  GOD  IN  THE  NON- 
CHRISTIAN  RELIGIONS 

Modern  Knowledge  of  the  Great  Religions  of  the  East. 
It  is  not  very  long  since  the  opinion  prevailed  among 
intelligent  Christian  people  that  the  non-Christian 
religions  are  altogether  false  and  unworthy  of  any 
consideration.  The  religions  of  the  world  were  con- 
fidently divided  into  two  classes — the  true  religious, 
which  included  Judaism  and  Christianity,  and  the 
false  religions,  which  included  all  others.  But  this 
dubious  and  provincial  way  of  thinking  about  God's 
relation  to  the  greater  part  of  the  human  race  began 
to  undergo  transformation  when  the  great  non-Chris- 
tian religions  became  better  known.  The  comparative 
study  of  religion  is  a  science  of  modern  growth.  A 
few  decades  ago  the  labors  of  certain  scholars  began 
to  unlock  for  us  a  knowledge  of  the  great  religions 
of  the  Orient.  This  came  about  through  the  trans- 
lation of  the  sacred  literatures  or  "Bibles"  of  these 
religions,  and  through  a  thoroughgoing  study  of  the 
great  ethnic  religions  themselves  as  they  survive  to- 
day. The  result  has  been  a  flood  of  light.  A  more 
comprehensive  and  exact  knowledge  of  the  non-Chris- 
tian religions  is  one  of  the  blessings  which  have  come 

196 


THE  NON-CHRISTIAN  RELIGIONS       197 

from  the  application  of  modern  scholarship  to  the 
study  of  the  religious  life  of  all  men. 

Of  course  our  subject  is  vast,  and  an  adequate'treat- 
ment  would  require  some  exposition  of  the  funda- 
mental ideas  of  each  of  the  great  ethnic  faiths.  That 
is  manifestly  impossible  within  the  limits  of  these 
studies.  We  can  present  only  a  few  significant  facts 
and  indicate  the  general  direction  in  which  broad 
Christian  thinking  must  travel. 

All  Great  Religions  Born  in  Asia.  First,  let  us  not  for- 
get that  all  the  great  religions  of  the  world  have  been 
born  and  cradled  in  Asia:  Hinduism,  Buddhism, 
Zoroastrianism,  Shintoism,  Judaism,  Christianity, 
and  Mohammedanism.  The  native  religions  of  Europe 
and  America  have  perished.  They  disappeared  be- 
cause in  the  onward  march  of  civilization  men  out- 
grew their  crude  and  primitive  ideas.  But  the  great 
faiths  which  began  in  Asia  are  all  living  to-day.  And 
they  have  lived  for  these  thousands  of  years  not  be- 
cause of  the  errors  they  contain  but  because  besides 
the  errors  they  embody  great  truths.  Their  adherents 
far  outnumber  the  adherents  of  Christianity.  If  we 
say  that  the  divine  revelation  is  not  mediated  through 
these  ethnic  faiths,  then  we  are  forced  to  conclude 
that  for  ages  God  has  revealed  himself  to  the  merest 
fraction  of  the  human  family — all  the  rest  seeking 
but  not  finding  the  comfort  and  assurance  their 
spirits  needed. 

Great  Truths  Found  in  the  Oriental  Faiths.  Again,  let 
us  not  forget  that  in  these  ethnic  religions  we  find 
teachings  which  we  recognize  at  once  as  great  truths. 
The  early  religion  of  India,  especially  as  it  is  reflected 
in  some  of  the  hymns  of  the  Rig  Veda,  seems  to  be 


198    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

characterized  by  a  primitive  monotheism.  There  are 
indeed  the  various  gods  of  the  Vedic  pantheon, 
Varuna,  Indra,  Agni,  and  the  rest.  But  there  is  ex- 
cellent reason  for  believing  that,  although  these  were 
worshiped  as  separate  personifications  of  divine  power 
manifested  in  the  nature  forces,  yet  they  were 'also 
regarded  as  manifestations  of  the  one  Divine  Exist- 
ence. The  following  extract  from  the  Rig  Veda  gives 
evidence  of  this : 

What  god  shall  we  adore  with  sacrifice? 
Him  let  us  praise,  the  golden  child  that  rose 
In  the  beginning,  who  was  born  the  lord — 
The  sole  lord  of  all  that  is — who  made 
The  earth  and  formed  the  sky,  who  giveth  life, 
Who  giveth  strength,  whose  bidding  gods  revere, 
Whose  hiding-place  is  immortality, 
Whose  shadow,  death;  who  by  his  might  is  king 
Of  all  the  breathing,  sleeping,  waking  world. 
Where'er,  let  loose  in  space,  the  mighty  waters 
Have  gone,  depositing  a  fruitful  seed. 
And  generating  fire,  there  he  arose 
Who  is  the  breath  and  life  of  all  the  gods, 
Whose  mighty  glance  looks  round  the  vast  expanse 
Of  watery  vapor — source  of  energy, 
Cause  of  the  sacrifice — the  only  God 
Above  the  gods. 
■ — 121st    hymn,    10th    Mandala.      Translation    by    Professor 
Monier  Williams,  of  Oxford. 

This  hymn  was  written  several  centuries  before  the 
earliest  writings  of  the  Old  Testament.  Note  also  the 
following  well-known  lines  from  another  Vedic  hymn, 
addressed  to  Indra: 

Thou  art  our  guardian,  advocate,  and  friend, 
A  brother,  father,  mother — all  combined. 
Most  fatherly  of  fathers,  we  are  thine, 
And  thou  art  ours.    Oh!  let  thy  pitying  soul 


THE  NON-CHRISTIAN  RELIGIONS       199 

Turn  to  us  in  compassion  when  we  praise  thee, 
And  slay  us  not  for  one  sin  or  for  many. 
Deliver  us  to-day,  to-morrow,  every  day. 

— From  Monier  Williams,  "Hinduism." 

That  we  have  there  the  expression  of  noble  beliefs 
concerning  God  is  perfectly  evident. 

One  of  the  most  impressive  characteristics  of  the 
higher  Oriental  thought  is  the  emphasis  laid  upon  the 
unreality  of  the  material.  The  world  of  physical 
existences  is  regarded  as  but  the  varying  expression 
of  the  Unseen  Reality  behind  it.  The  unseen  is  the 
only  abiding  and  eternal  life.  The  Vedas  and  the 
Upanishads  breathe  this  fundamental  view  through- 
out. There  is  too,  on  the  part  of  the  Oriental  mind, 
a  deep  longing  for  union  with  the  Divine  Being. 
Absorption  into  the  Divine,  with  consequent  ending 
of  finite  personality,  is  the  religious  belief  which  ex- 
presses this  longing.  This  is  the  only  form  that  faith 
in  immortality  took  in  the  higher  Eastern  thinking. 
And  we  have  learned  repeatedly  from  our  mission- 
aries .what  earnest  religious  yearnings  and  heart- 
hungers  can  exist  in  the  midst  of  polytheistic  forms 
of  worship.  And  even  if  the  worship  of  the  modern 
Hindu  is  a  degraded  polytheism,  the  old  religion  of 
India,  that  of  the  Vedas,  wTas  fundamentally  mono- 
theistic— the  earliest  monotheism  recorded  in  the  his- 
tory of  religion. 

Now,  truth  is  truth  wherever  we  find  it,  and  light 
is  light.  The  difference  between  the  dim  light  of  early 
dawn  and  the  full  beams  of  noontide  is  simply  a  dif- 
ference in  the  amount  of  light  which  is  being  shed 
over  the  landscape.  But  the  dim  light  of  early  dawn 
has  the  same  source  as  the  bright  beams  of  day  which 


200  FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

stream  down  from  the  glowing  sun.  And,  surely,  we 
should  rejoice  to  find  evidences  of  the  truth  about 
God  in  these  faiths  which  are  much  more  ancient  than 
are  our  own.  God  has  indeed  spoken  "at  sundry  times 
and  in  divers  manners  through  the  prophets."  And 
these  prophets  are  not  only  the  Hebrew  prophets,  as 
we  may  have  been  taught  to  think,  but  all  who  have 
given  utterance  to  the  truth  of  God.  The  view  has 
often  been  put  forth  that  the  origin  of  religion  is  to 
be  found  in  a  primitive  revelation  to  the  Hebrew 
people  which  was  later  expanded  into  the  more  com- 
plete revelation  of  Christianity,  and  that  beyond  this 
there  is  no  real  religion  but  only  superstitions  of  vari- 
ous degrees  of  refinement.  But  this  view,  which  was 
defended  by  Mr.  Gladstone,1  and  other  sincere  Chris- 
tian men,  dissolves  away  before  an  enlarging  knowl- 
edge of  the  great  religions  of  the  Far  East. 

Non-Christian  Religions  a  Phase  of  the  Divine  Revelation. 
We  dare  not  declare  these  great  faiths,  which  count- 
less millions  of  rational  beings  have  professed  for 
thousands  of  years,  to  be  nothing  but  error  and  delu- 
sion, for  if  we  do,  we  so  discredit  the  human  reason 
and  conscience  as  to  make  them  very  doubtful  powers 
by  which  to  accredit  the  truth  of  our  own  faith.  With 
all  their  imperfections  and  weakness  there  is  a 
majesty  and  dignity  to  these  old  religions,  and  it  is 
the  majesty  and  dignity  of  the  eternal  truths  they 
contain.  The  history  of  religion  is  the  age-long  story 
of  the  quest  of  God  by  the  human  heart,  and  of  the 
responses  wrhich  the  Eternal  has  made  to  that  quest; 
and  the  non-Christian  religions  are  earlier  chapters 
in  that  age-long  story.     This  view  of  the  broader 

1  In  "The  Impregnable  Rock  of  Holy  Scripture." 


THE  NON-CHRISTIAN  RELIGIONS       201 

revelation  is  absolutely  necessary  to  our  Christian 
thinking,  and,  happily,  is  becoming  dominant  in 
modern  missions.  As  our  knowledge  of  the  religious 
consciousness  of  Oriental  peoples  grows,  a  new  signif- 
icance is  found  for  the  words  of  the  apostle,  "There  is 
a  light  which  lighteth  every  man  that  cometh  into  the 
world." 

Weakness  of  the  Ethnic  Religions.  But  while  it  is 
undoubtedly  true  that  the  non-Christian  religions 
contain  great  truths,  we  must  remember  that  no  reli- 
gion can  be  known  simply  through  a  study  of  its 
sacred  literature.  Its  effects  or  outcomes  in  life  must 
be  taken  into  account,  and  when  we  estimate  religions 
on  this  broad  basis  we  begin  to  realize  how  dismally 
the  ethnic  faiths  of  the  Orient  have  failed  in  produc- 
ing a  lofty  type  of  moral  life.  Socially  and  politically 
the  Orient  is  still  ages  behind  the  Western  world. 
We  cannot  forget  that  the  Brahman  faith  enjoins  bar- 
baric austerities  as  the  price  of  divine  forgiveness, 
and  that  it  founded  the  system  of  caste  which  is  to- 
day the  most  terrible  burden  under  which  India 
struggles.  Modern  Hinduism  is  a  jungle  of  supersti- 
tions, many  of  them  of  a  revolting  character,  and  has 
fostered  such  terrible  practices  as  the  burning  of 
widows  and  the  destruction  of  little  children.  Bud- 
dhism offers  no  better  comfort  for  human  sorrow  than 
the  promise  of  personal  extinction  at  physical  death ; 
and  throughout  the  entire  Orient  the  development  of 
social  morality  has  reached  only  a  low  level  and  the 
position  of  women  is  still  one  of  degradation  except 
where  the  influence  of  Christianity  has  made  itself 
felt.  Religions  are  to  be  judged,  we  repeat,  not  by  a 
few  lofty  doctrines  of  their  founders,  but  by  the  moral 


202  FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

ideals  they  nourish  and  the  type  of  ethical  and  social 
life  they  have  brought  forth.  And,  realizing  all  the 
difference  between  what  the  ethnic  faiths  have  done 
for  the  Orient,  and  what  Christianity  has  wrought  in 
the  Western  world,  we  may  well  be  glad  that  "God 
who  at  sundry  times  and  diverse  manners  hath  spoken 
in  times  past  through  the  prophets,"  hath  in  these  last 
days  spoken  unto  us  by  his  Son. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  REVELATION  OF  GOD  IN  HUMAN 
PERSONALITY 

There  have  been  those  who,  after  studying  the  uni- 
form sequences  in  nature,  have  been  deeply  impressed, 
and  even  depressed,  because  they  did  not  discover  in 
nature  any  evidences  of  feeling  or  compassion.  John 
Stuart  Mill  said  that  "nearly  all  the  things  that  men 
are  hanged  or  imprisoned  for  doing  to  one  another  are 
nature's  everyday  performances."  Ferdinand  Brune- 
tiere  declares  that  "nature  is  immoral,  thoroughly 
immoral."  And  one  of  our  recent  theologians  writes : 
"There  is  no  equity  in  nature.  She  knows  nothing 
of  what  is  meant  by  that  noble  English  phrase,  'Give 
him  fair  play.'  She  will  herself  cripple  a  man  with 
all  sorts  of  weakness  and  then  crush  him  because  he  is 
weak.  Not  only  so,  but  sometimes  these  weaknesses 
are  a  result,  under  natural  law,  of  the  action  of  some 
other  man  for  whom  the  cripple  is  in  no  degree  re- 
sponsible; that  is,  nature  is  so  indifferent  to  equity 
that  she  strikes  the  wrong  man."  * 

We  have  here  an  impassioned  outburst  which  surely 
does  credit  to  the  theologian's  feelings.  Dr.  Curtis's 
purpose  is  really  to  point  out  the  inadequacy  of  the 
revelation  contained  in  nature,  or  "natural  religion," 


1  The  Christian  Faith,  by  Professor  Olin  A.  Curtis,  p.  108. 

203 


204    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

as  it  used  to  be  called.  But  ought  he  in  careful  think- 
ing thus  to  personify  nature  and  hold  "her"  respon- 
sible for  a  lot  of  things  "she"  does?  If  we  are  to  hold 
to  the  conception  of  God  as  immanent,  we  surely  must 
believe  that  the  fixed  sequences  in  organic  life  express 
the  wisdom  of  the  Divine  Creator.  We  may  think  it 
unjust,  perhaps,  that  impaired  physical  vitality  in 
parents  should  weaken  the  offspring.  But  we  do  well 
to  remember  that,  on  the  other  hand,  physical  vigor 
in  parents  also  strengthens  the  offspring.  Heredity 
shows  us  children  now  and  again  almost  damned  into 
the  world.  But  the  great  majority  are  blessed  iuto 
the  world  under  the  same  unvarying  laws.  The  differ- 
ence is  found,  not  in  any  variation  of  the  divine  will, 
but  in  the  awful  consequences  of  human  sin.  And 
shall  we  ask  that  the  natural  sequences  shall  gener- 
ally remain  constant,  but  be  varied  in  those  cases 
where  the  consequences  of  sin  would  work  out  pain  to 
the  innocent?  "Visiting  the  iniquities  of  the  fathers 
upon  the  children"  is  written  not  only  in  the  Deca- 
logue but  in  life.  And  it  came  to  be  written  in  the 
ancient  law  because  it  was  found  to  be  written  so 
large  in  human  life.  There  is  no  theodicy  which  clears 
up  the  problem  of  human  pain  and  reconciles  it  with 
our  abstract  principles  of  justice.  But  vicarious 
suffering  is  woven  deeply  into  the  very  warp  and  woof 
of  our  human  existence. 

The  Revelation  through  Nature  Not  Sufficient  for  a  Moral 
Religion.  Of  course  all  this  means  that  the  moral  ele- 
ments of  the  divine  character  are  not  discovered  by  a 
study  of  that  vast  system  of  constant  sequences  which 
we  call  "the  natural  universe."  But  should  we  be- 
come aroused  and  say  for  that  reason  that  nature  is 


HUMAN  PERSONALITY  205 

immoral?  That  "she"  does  a  lot  of  unjust  things? 
Or  should  we  bear  in  mind  that  nature  is  not  an 
independent  agency  at  all — that  she  does  nothing  on 
her  own  account?  The  blame  we  lay  at  the  door  of 
nature  we  are  really  charging  up  against  the  God  who 
is  immanent  in  nature  and  whose  broad  purposes 
nature  expresses.  Shall  we  not  say,  that  while  we 
must  confess  that  suffering  is  a  great  mystery  and 
that  the  ways  of  the  Eternal  are  often  past  our  find- 
ing out,  that  what  all  this  means  is  really  that  in 
nature  we  find  only  a  partial  revelation  of  God. 
While  men  might  possibly  have  come  to  some  knowl- 
edge of  God's  wisdom  and  power  through  nature,  they 
never  could  have  attained  a  knowledge  of  his  ethical 
love. 

Personal  Relations  Demanded.  Let  us  agree,  therefore, 
that  in  nature  we  have  a  revelation — but  that  revela- 
tion is  not  enough  to  lay  the  foundations  of  religion. 
But  men  have  never  been  satisfied  with  the  revelation 
in  nature.  And  this  is  the  reason  why  the  human 
heart  has  so  long  believed  in  a  God  whose  nature  is 
moral,  a  God  who  not  only  thinks  and  wills,  but  feels 
and  loves.  The  justification  of  this  deep  faith  of  the 
human  heart  in  a  moral  God  is  found  chiefly  in  the 
feeling  that  the  divine  cannot  be  less  than  the  human. 
We  do  not  need  to  be  told  what  a  large  part  the 
affections  of  the  human  heart  play  in  making  our  life 
what  it  is.  We  dare  not  leave  out  the  element  of 
moral  love  in  summing  up  human  personality.  Must 
we  not  think,  then,  that  the  Divine  Being,  who  we 
have  every  reason  to  believe  is  intelligent  and  pur- 
poseful, is  also  moral?  There  is,  indeed,  no  way  of 
arguing  from  nature  to  an  ethical  God,  for  the  rea- 


206    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

son  that  it  turns  out  that  nature,  so  far  as  we  can 
find,  does  not  reveal  the  higher  ethical  side  of  the 
divine  character.  But  there  surely  is  a  pathway  for 
reason  from  our  life,  made  rich  as  it  is  with  human 
affections,  to  the  heart  of  the  Eternal.  The  argument 
for  the  divine  love  is,  therefore,  from  a  moral  effect 
to  a  moral  cause.  The  effect  is  the  constitution  of 
human  personality  with  its  affections  and  the  acts 
of  love  and  sacrifice  which  express  them.  The  only 
adequate  cause  of  this  effect  is  the  Creator  of  the 
human  personality,  himself  a  moral  Person.  Shall  the 
Creator  of  the  human  spirit  which  loves  not  himself 
love?  If  we  are  to  think  of  the  Divine  Being  as  per- 
sonal at  all,  his  personality  may  not  be  less  complete 
than  the  human;  but,  rather,  must  the  Divine  Per- 
son include  in  the  fullness  of  his  being  all  the  essen- 
tial elements  of  our  human  personality,  but  without 
the  limitations  and  imperfections  which  beset  the 
finite. 

Speculative  Objections.  But  here  we  meet  the  specula- 
tive philosopher  again.  We  have  met  him  before.  He 
objects  to  thinking  of  love  as  a  necessary  part  of  God 
on  the  ground  that  it  destroys  the  Divine  Absolute- 
ness, for,  he  will  urge,  the  necessary  condition  of 
ethical  love  is  the  finding  of  some  object  for  the  affec- 
tions other  than  the  subject  who  loves.  But  we  can- 
not think  of  the  Absolute  as  having  to  go  beyond  him- 
self to  find  objects  for  his  mental  activity.  Therefore 
to  think  that  the  Infinite  loves  finite  beings,  as  we  do 
each  other,  is  an  anthropomorphism  which  clearly  de- 
stroys the  absoluteness-of  the  Infinite.  This  objection 
is  cited  not  because  we  feel  great  respect  for  it,  but 
because  it  stands  for  a  class  of  objections  to  the  Chris- 


HUMAN  PERSONALITY  207 

tian  conception  of  God  where  the  difficulties  are  specu- 
lative rather  than  real.  We  have  already  disavowed 
(in  Chapter  VI)  all  philosophical  allegiance  to  the 
idea  of  God  as  the  speculative  "Absolute."  This  idea 
has  little  practical  religious  value.  Its  religious  out- 
come is  pantheism,  and,  as  we  have  said  before,  pan- 
theism is  the  practical  equivalent  in  religion  of 
atheism.  We  are  engaged  in  a  discussion  of  funda- 
mental religious  conceptions.  Atheism,  or  any  con- 
ception which  leads  to  it,  does  not  fall  within  the 
range  of  such  religious  conceptions.  We  give  over  the 
task  of  treating  religious  ideas  from  a  merely  specu- 
lative point  of  view  and  content  ourselves  with  the 
more  useful  task  of  clearing  our  underlying  Chris- 
tian conceptions  of  inconsistencies. 

"God  Is  Love."  But  as  over  against  any  such  specu- 
lative objection  to  the  divine  love,  we  urge  that  the 
unique  and  characteristic  teaching  of  Christianity  is 
that  "God  is  love."  These  are  the  great  words  of  the 
apostle  who  thus  sums  up  the  divine  nature.  The  only 
interpretation  we  can  possibly  put  upon  these  words 
is  that  the  divine  nature  is  not  complete  without  the 
human.  The  very  fact  that  moral  love  is  the  most 
characteristic  power  of  God's  divine  nature  means 
that  an  object  or  objects  of  love  are  in  this  sense  eth- 
ically necessary  to  God.  Just  as  the  parent  cannot  be 
a  parent  at  all  without  the  child,  so  the  Infinite  can- 
not be  the  Infinite  without  the  finite  as  an  object  of 
infinite  love.  In  other  words,  humanity  is  necessary 
to  the  completion  of  the  divine  nature.  In  this  ethical 
and  Christian  sense  we  affirm  the  absoluteness  of  God 
and  confess  that  the  human  must  be  included  as  a 
necessary  part  of  the  divine. 


208    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

And  as  for  anthropomorphism,  we  have  already 
shown  its  necessity  and  that  there  can  be  no  objection 
to  it  in  principle.  In  accordance  with  the  principle  of 
higher  anthropomorphism  already  set  forth,  we  urge 
that  in  seeking  to  know  the  nature  of  the  divine  love 
we  shall  have  to  be  guided  by  our  knowledge  of  love 
on  the  plane  of  our  own  human  experience.  The 
moral  affections  must  be  essentially  the  same  in  the 
Divine  Personality  as  in  the  human,  or  there  is  no  use 
of  talking  of  a  moral  relation  at  all.  Now,  on  the 
human  plane  love  appears  as  the  warmest  and  most 
positive  of  the  human  emotions.  It  ought  to  be  re- 
marked here  that  we  are  using  the  term  "love"  with 
an  ethical  content.  The  word  is  sometimes  used  where 
it  stands  for  nothing  but  physical  passion.  Genuine 
love  prizes  the  object  of  affection  so  highly  that  there 
can  be  no  contentment  without  possession.  But  pos- 
session of  the  object  of  affection  is  only  partial.  With 
this  alone  we  have  only  the  selfish  desire  to  have  and 
to  enjoy,  which  may  soon  degenerate  into  selfishness 
and  even  brutality.  The  other  part  of  moral  love  is 
the  desire  to  bestow  every  possible  benefit  and  gift  to 
protect  and  to  serve  the  one  loved.  Without  this 
latter  what  is  called  love  loses  its  ethical  content  and 
becomes  mere  selfishness  of  varying  degrees  of  coarse- 
ness. Moral  love  then,  we  repeat,  means  not  only  fel- 
lowship with  and  enjoyment  of  the  object  of  the  affec- 
tion, it  means  also  the  consuming  desire  to  serve,  pro- 
tect, and  give  joy  to  the  one  loved.  And  apart  from 
this  unselfish  element,  there  can  be  no  genuine  moral 
love. 

Another  characteristic  of  moral  love  in  human  life 
is  a  supreme  valuing  of  the  object  of  the  affections. 


HUMAN  PERSONALITY  209 

This  does  not  always  mean  moral  approval.  Many 
times  human  love  clings  to  the  object  of  the  affection 
in  the  full  knowledge  of  moral  shortcomings,  as,  for 
example,  when  a  mother  continues  to  love  and  stand 
by  a  dissipated  son.  The  great  essential  elements  in 
moral  love,  therefore,  as  we  know  it  in  human  life,  are 
the  desire  for  fellowship  with  the  one  loved  and  the 
unselfish  giving  to  the  one  loved  of  every  care  and 
protection  and  joy  irrespective  of  whether  these  be- 
stowals are  deserved  or  not. 

Now,  the  love  of  God  cannot  be  essentially  different 
from  this,  though,  of  course,  it  must  be  thought  of  as 
complete  and  perfect  in  a  way  no  human  affection  can 
even  be.  God  loves  men.  This  must  mean  that  God 
desires  the  fellowship  of  men,  and  that  he  seeks  to 
promote  their  happiness  in  every  way.  The  divine 
love  means,  the  granting  of  every  gift  which  will  min- 
ister to  the  joy  and  highest  well-being  of  men,  not  as 
moral  desert,  but  as  the  free  outflowing  of  love  itself. 
It  means  also  that  there  must  be  a  deep  desire  in  the 
mind  of  God  for  a  return  of  the  love  he  feels  and  ex- 
presses to  men. 

Moral  Love  Made  Known  Only  through  Personality. 
If,  then,  moral  love  is  an  essential  of  the  Divine 
Nature,  the  question  arises,  How  shall  it  be  made 
manifest  to  men?  Love  is  impossible  except  between 
persons.  We  may  speak  of  loving  inanimate  things, 
but  the  word  is  but  an  accommodated  sense.  We  love 
the  old  homestead,  not  because  of  the  material  things 
of  which  it  is  made,  but  because  of  the  personal  asso- 
ciations which  gather  about  it.  It  is  because  of  the 
persons  we  loved  who  dwelt  there  that  the  house  seems 
so  dear.    Moral  love  therefore  exists  only  on  the  plane 


210    FOUNDATIONS  OP  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

of  the  personal.  Where,  then,  should  we  look  for  a 
revelation  of  the  ethical  love  of  God?  Nowhere  but  in 
Personality.  And  since,  as  we  have  already  seen,  our 
knowledge  of  the  Infinite  must  be  in  terms  of  our 
finite  experience,  the  revelation  of  the  ethical  love  of 
God  must  be  made  through  human  personality.  We 
must  seek  the  divine  revelation,  therefore,  not  only 
in  nature,  but  in  human  nature.  It  appears,  then, 
that  the  divine  revelation  begins  in  nature,  but  finds 
its  completion  in  human  life.  Shall  God,  therefore, 
come  into  human  life?  Shall  he  make  himself  known 
through  man?  Shall  he  manifest  through  human 
personality  those  higher  moral  attributes  of  his 
nature?  Is  the  course  of  the  Christian  revelation 
through  man  to  God?  It  must  be  so.  That  God  really 
has  come  into  human  life,  is  the  great  and  unique 
message  of  Christianity.  The  incarnation,  that  great 
and  comprehensive  Christian  teaching,  means  that  the 
Divine  is  revealed  supremely  in  the  human — that  the 
deepest  secrets  of  the  divine  nature  are  made  known 
in  humanity.  Through  the  personal  finite,  the  per- 
sonal Infinite  may  be  known  with  a  fullness  not  other- 
wise possible. 

God  Revealed  in  Particular  Personalities.  Now,  this 
great  truth  of  the  incarnation  may  be  understood  ( 1 ) 
in  a  general  way  as  God  revealed  in  human  nature, 
and  (2)  in  a  special  or  particular  way  as  God  revealed 
in  a  particular  human  personality.  These  we  must 
explain. 

( 1 )  There  is  in  a  very  true  sense  a  revelation  of  the 
Divine  in  our  common  humanity.  One  of  the  great 
truths  which  we  have  noted  before  in  our  discussion 
is  the  kinship  of  God  and  men.    If  the  divine  and  the 


HUMAN  PERSONALITY  211 

human  were  totally  unlike  it  would  be  idle  to  talk 
about  a  revelation  of  the  divine  in  .the  human.  But 
from  the  earliest  days  of  religion  to  the  present  the 
great  assumption  underlying  all  worship  is  that  re- 
sponse is  to  be  expected  and  some  kind  of  fellowship 
with  the  Divine  is  possible  to  the  human;  and  the 
Bible  constantly  teaches  the  truth  that  there  is  a  kin- 
ship betwreen  God  and  men.  Man  is  "made  in  the 
image  of  God."  This  is  to  be  understood  as  referring 
not  to  bodily  form,  of  course,  but  to  mental  and  spir- 
itual capacities.  Even  the  old  Testament  prophets 
taught  men  that  the  relation  between  them  and  God 
was  one  of  the  Father  to  his  children.2  And  in  the 
teaching  of  Christ  the  word  "Father"  sums  up  the 
whole  of  the  relation  of  God  to  men.  Now  the  clear 
implication  of  Fatherhood  is  that  the  child  partakes 
of  the  Father's  nature.  The  child  will  never  become 
the  father,  for  the  two  are  separate  personalities ;  but 
with  all  the  great  differences  in  knowledge  and  power 
their  natures  are  the  same.  The  child  has  come  from 
the  parent. 

God  Revealed  in  Humanity.  This  surely  means  that 
we  are  not  searching  vainly  when  we  look  for  evi- 
dences of  the  divine  in  our  common  humanity.  Most 
of  us  feel  a  sense  of  reverence  when  we  stand  before 
a  great  canvas  portraying  a  Madonna.  This  is  not 
simply  because  it  suggests  to  us  the  woman  who  gave 
physical  life  to  Jesus  Christ  of  Galilee,  but  because 
the  picture  stands  for  that  great,  universal,  holy  fact 
in  our  life — the  fact  of  human  motherhood.  We  see 
in  that  fact  the  purest  affection,  the  giving  by  one  per- 
son of  the  whole  self  in  sacrifice  and  loving  service 


»Jer.  31.9;   lea.  63.  16;  64.8. 


212    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

that  another  may  have  life.  To  perceive  in  all  the 
noblest  features  of  our  human  life  reflections  of  the 
Divine — this  is  to  recognize  the  revelation  of  the  In- 
finite in  the  finite. 

(2)  But  there  has  been  another  manifestation  of 
the  Divine  in  the  human.  We  are  still  holding  in 
mind  the  great  truth  of  the  kinship  between  the  finite 
and  the  Infinite.  Christ  taught  men  to  think  of  God 
as  the  Infinite  Father.  And  again  we  urge  that  this 
means  an  essential  identity  of  nature  between  the 
child  and  the  parent.  Of  course  the  analogy  must  not 
be  pushed  too  far.  But  clearly  Christ's  teaching  of 
the  Divine  Fatherhood  means  that  there  is  no  impass- 
able gulf  of  difference  between  the  finite  and  the  In- 
finite— the  two  are  akin.  The  finite  is  such  by  rea- 
son of  its  limitations.  The  boundaries  which  mark 
the  range  of  finite  powers  and  activities  are  definitely 
drawn.  By  reason  of  these  the  finite  never  can  tran- 
scend itself  and  become  the  Infinite.  But  that  does 
not  mean  that  the  Infinite  may  not  enter  the  condi- 
tions of  life  which  characterize  the  finite.  And  this 
brings  us  to  the  second  or  specific  manner  in  which  the 
incarnation  has  taken  place.  Christianity  teaches 
that  in  the  human  personality  of  Jesus  we  have  the 
highest  possible  revelation  of  the  divine  personality  of 
God. 

Most  Perfectly  in  Jesus  Christ.  Again  let  us  reiterate 
the  truth  that  knowledge  of  God  comes  to  us  by  way 
of  our  human  experiences.  The  ascent  to  the  divine 
is  through  the  human.  We  recognize  that  our  wor- 
thiest conceptions  of  God  are  formed  in  terms  of  the 
noblest  ideals  of  human  life.  It  follows,  then,  that  the 
most  perfect  personality  known  in  human  life  will  be 


HUMAN  PERSONALITY  213 

the  highest  and  most  complete  manifestation  of  God. 
And  there  is  no  difference  of  opinion  as  to  where  the 
most  perfect  personality  known  in  human  life  is  to 
be  found.  It  is  in  Jesus  Christ.  A  more  perfect  em- 
bodiment of  love,  a  purer  spirit,  or  more  flawless  char- 
acter we  cannot  conceive.  The  portrait  of  Christ  as 
it  has  been  presented  in  the  four  Gospels  of  the  New 
Testament  corresponds  in  every  way  to  the  highest 
ideal  of  which  the  human  mind  is  capable.  Let  us 
refresh  our  thought  in  regard  to  a  few  significant 
facts. 

Significant  Facts  Pointing  to  This.  Jesus  was  born  in 
Bethlehem,  but  lived  in  Nazareth  of  Galilee.  Though 
his  parents  were  of  the  peasant  class,  they  were  de- 
scended from  the  ancient  royal  stock  of  Israel.  For 
all  who  accept  the  New  Testament  records  as  an  essen- 
tially trustworthy  account  of  his  life,  ministry,  and 
death,  the  following  propositions  will  be  accepted  as 
undisputed.  ( 1 )  Jesus  manifested  as  he  grew  up  such 
remarkable  moral  and  religious  characteristics,  that 
he  made  a  very  deep  and  lasting  impression  upon 
those  who  knew  him.  (2)  His  life  was  brief,  but  dur- 
ing its  few  years  somehow  he  gave  to  those  who  be- 
came his  more  intimate  friends  the  profound  convic- 
tion that  he  was  the  "Messiah,"  or  Anointed  One  of 
Jehovah,  whom  the  Jewish  nation  had  been  expecting 
for  many  years.  (3)  To  his  intimates  he  also  gave 
the  conviction  that  he  was  in  constant  spiritual  fel- 
lowship with  God  in  a  way  that  was  absolutely  new  in 
religious  experience.  (4)  After  three  years  spent  in 
religious  teaching  and  ministering  to  the  sick  and 
helpless  he  was  crucified.  Everything  connected  with 
his  death — his  foreknowledge  of  it,  his  conduct  as  he 


214    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

approached  it,  the  wonderful  prayer  for  the  forgive- 
ness of  his  tormentors,  gasped  out  in  the  most  un- 
speakable agony — all  this  convinced  his  followers 
that  he  was  indeed  the  Suffering  Servant  of  Jehovah 
of  whom  the  great  Prophet  of  the  exile  had  spoken. 
(5)  But  that  which  gave  the  greatest  certainty  to  all 
this  growing  conviction  in  the  minds  of  his  followers 
was  the  fact  that  after  his  death  had  been  accom- 
plished they  saw  him  again.  He  appeared  to  them  and 
talked  to  them  a  sufficient  number  of  times  to  con- 
vince them  that  he  was  alive.  His  parting  message  to 
them  was  that  they  should  proclaim  as  witnesses  the 
great  facts  which  had  now  come  to  their  knowledge. 
After  they  had  waited  a  few  days  they  set  about  the 
task.  (6)  And  now  remarkable  manifestations  be- 
gin to  follow  the  proclaiming  of  Jesus  as  the  risen 
Messiah.  Marvelous  moral  power  is  given  to  those 
who  believe  the  testimony  of  the  followers  of  Jesus 
and  who  seek  the  divine  forgiveness  through  his  name. 
Men  appear  among  the  followers  of  Jesus  whose  lives 
have  been  marvelously  transformed.  A  moral  enthu- 
siasm appeared  to  take  possession  of  them  and  so 
transformed  them  that  they  became  changed  men. 
One  of  the  most  conclusive  reasons  for  believing  that 
Christ  did  indeed  appear  to  his  followers  after  his 
death  is  found  in  the  otherwise  unexplainable  reviv- 
ing of  their  prostrate  faith  and  the  powerful  spiritual 
movement  which  followed  the  efforts  of  those  who  be- 
gan to  preach  in  his  name.  Those  who  come  to  believe 
in  Christ  now  declare  that  they  have  an  inward  expe- 
rience of  cleansing  from  the  burden  and  guilt  of  sin 
that  is  new  in  their  lives.  They  exhibit  power 
against  sin  which  can  be  accounted  for  only  by  ac- 


HUMAN  PERSONALITY  215 

knowledging  the  fact  that  they  now  possess  moral 
energy  quite  beyond  anything  yet  known  in  the  reli- 
gious experience  of  mankind.  The  distinct  type  of 
life  thus  produced,  with  the  purifying  of  the  moral 
nature  and  the  enlightening  of  the  understanding,  led 
to  a  larger  faith  in  Him  who  had  been  their  teacher 
and  friend.  He  now  becomes  the  dominant  power  in 
their  lives,  and  loyalty  to  him  is  the  great  source  of 
their  moral  energy,  and  from  calling  him  "Master" 
and  "Teacher"  they  begin  to  speak  of  him  as  their 
Saviour,  and  as  the  "Son  of  God." 

Now  we  must  leave  aside  all  discussion  of  the  meta- 
physical aspects  of  Christ's  relation  to  God.  The 
reason  for  this  is  simply  that  we  are  seeking  to  form- 
ulate a  philosophy  of  Christian  faith  not  from  the 
abstractly  logical  or  speculative  point  of  view,  but 
from  the  standpoint  of  religious  values.  Those  con- 
siderations which  have  a  bearing  upon  the  practical 
matter  of  the  place  Christ  should  have  in  our  religious 
thinking  are  our  affair.  Everything  else  we  leave 
to  dogmatic  theology.  The  question  arises  then :  Was 
Jesus  Christ  divine?  If  so,  what  shall  we  understand 
by  his  divinity?  Was  he  divine  in  a  sense  which  no 
other  human  being  who  ever  lived  was  divine?  What 
are  the  practical  implications  of  his  divinity  for 
Christian  faith? 

Divinity  of  Jesus.  In  seeking  rational  foundation  in 
our  thinking  for  a  conception  of  the  divinity  of  Christ 
we  begin,  where  we  always  must  begin,  upon  the  plane 
of  the  human.  There  is  no  other  approach  to  the 
divine.  We  may  learn  "definitions  of  God"  and  certain 
formulations  of  accepted  belief  about  divinity,  after 
the  manner  of  the  old  theologies,  but  this  is  generally 


216  FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

barren  for  the  religious  life.  The  one  fact  always 
emerges  that  the  gleams  of  the  divine  possible  to  us 
always  shine  forth  in  some  way  through  the  human. 
"No  man  cometh  unto  the  Father  but  through  me." 
"He  that  hath  seen  me  hath  seen  the  Father,"  said 
Christ.  We  turn  away,  therefore,  from  all  attempts  to 
grasp  the  meaning  of  divinity  in  Jesus  Christ  in  any 
other  way  than  through  those  qualities  of  his  person- 
ality which  we  recognize  as  thoroughly  human. 

It  was  so  with  the  early  disciples  of  Jesus.  They 
all  came  to  be  his  devoted  friends  and  followers  not 
because  of  theophanies  or  unusual  displays  of  divine 
power.  Jesus  was  walking  along  the  beach  of  the  Sea 
of  Galilee.  Some  fishermen  sat  there  working  on  their 
nets.  After  earnest  conversation — we  know  not  for 
how  long — they  decide  to  give  up  their  business  and 
become  the  intimate  friends  and  followers  of  this 
deep-souled  Teacher.  The  scene  is  as  perfectly  human 
as  it  is  profound  in  its  spiritual  destinies.  This  was 
the  beginning  of  their  personal  knowledge  of  Jesus 
and  fellowship  with  him.  But  before  many  months 
they  were  confessing  his  divinity  and  in  the  later  years 
they  joyously  sealed  with  their  life's  blood  their  faith 
in  him  as  the  Eternal  Son  of  God. 

Divinity  Revealed  through  Humanity.  There  is  little 
doubt  that  the  followers  of  Jesus  Christ  in  the  twen- 
tieth century  come  to  know  their  Lord  as  divine  much 
as  the  disciples  of  the  first  century  did.  It  is  his 
normal  and  perfect  humanity  of  which  we  first  gain 
knowledge.  We  learn  to  admire  and  to  love  Jesus 
Christ  as  a  man — the  most  perfect  man  of  whom  we 
have  any  conception.  We  recognize  the  truth  that  he 
was  not  only  extraordinary  but  absolutely  unparal- 


HUMAN  PERSONALITY  217 

leled.  No  other  faultless  and  perfect  character  ever 
existed  among  the  sons  of  earth.  His  humanity  comes 
first  in  the  growth  of  our  knowledge  of  Jesus.  Then 
the  recognition  of  his  divinity  comes  as  a  resultant — a 
great  conviction  which  deepens  and  deepens  in  the 
soul  as  we  learn  more  and  more  of  that  matchless 
Teacher  and  Royal  Sufferer,  whose  whole  life  brought 
a  new  conception  of  God  and  a  new  valuation  of 
humanity  into  the  world.  To  any  who  realize  that 
they  fail  to  grasp  the  meaning  of  his  divinity — the 
fact  that  he  was  one  with  the  Eternal  God  in  a  unique 
sense — his  own  words  point  the  way.  "No  man  com- 
eth  unto  the  Father  but  by  me."  A  reverent  and 
thoughtful  study  of  the  life,  ministry,  and  teaching 
of  Jesus  Christ  will  prove  to  be  a  revelation  of  the 
mind  and  heart  of  God  to  any  earnest  seeker  after  the 
truth. 

The  Divine  in  the  Human.  But  a  final  word  must  be 
added.  The  truth  that  the  divine  may  be  grasped 
through  the  human,  meaning  that  the  divine  is  in  the 
human — that  is,  the  immanence  of  God — is  a  great 
conception  quite  as  necessary  to  enable  us  to  explain 
human  life  as  the  life  of  nature.  An  "ascent  of  man" 
through  humanity  to  some  realization  of  divinity 
implies  a  descent  of  God  into  the  realm  of  human 
life.  Whence  comes  the  hunger  of  the  human  mind 
for  truth?  Whence  the  passion  for  righteousness? 
Whence  that  constant  summons  to  the  higher  choices 
named  conscience?  And  has  not  the  fire  of  love  that 
burns  in  the  heart  of  the  parent,  the  patriot  and  the 
philanthropist  been  lighted  from  a  divine  source? 
And  is  not  sacrifice  that  others  may  live  more  abun- 
dantly a  divine  gleam  glorified  through  the  prism  of 


218  FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

human  heroism?  As  Jesus  said,  "The  kingdom  of  God 
is  within  you."  The  highest  revelation  of  God  in 
human  personality  is  possible  only  because  God  is 
immanent  in  human  personality.  Not  in  any  way 
that  would  destroy  human  freedom,  for  the  develop- 
ment of  moral  character — possible  only  through 
freedom — is  the  great  underlying  purpose  of  God's 
revelation.  Jesus  Christ  is,  therefore,  the  great  Medi- 
ator between  the  divine  and  the  human ;  that  is,  him- 
self completely  human,  and  divine  with  a  fullness  pos- 
sible to  no  other  man,  he  stands  as  the  great  High 
Priest  of  humanity.  We  come  to  God  through  him, 
therefore,  not  only  because  we  must  come  to  God  by 
way  of  the  human,  but  because  his  humanity  is  linked 
with  a  measure  of  divinity  which  makes  him  the  one 
human  Being  who  has  entered  perfectly  into  the  heart 
and  mind  of  the  Eternal  God.  The  apostle's  words, 
therefore,  express  a  profound  truth :  "In  him  [Christ] 
dwelleth  all  the  fullness  of  the  divine  nature  in 
bodily  manifestation"  (Col.  2.  9). 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  REVELATION  OF  GOD  IN  INDIVIDUAL 
EXPERIENCE 

The  question  now  arises  whether  the  divine  revela- 
tion is  made  through  the  particular  experiences  of 
the  individual.  Of  course  in  a  sense  all  divine  revela- 
tion is  to  the  individual.  That  is,  the  revelation  is 
comprehended  by  the  individual.  The  theistic  doc- 
trine means  that  God,  the  Personal  Ethical  Spirit,  is 
known  in  human  experience.  We  can  have  no  knowl- 
edge of  God  except  as  that  knowledge  comes  to  us  by 
way  of  the  totality  of  our  experience  arising  from  our 
conscious  relation  to  the  world  of  things  and  other 
persons.  Any  knowledge  of  God  must  come  as  the 
result  of  the  reaction  of  the  finite  spirit  over  against 
the  activity  of  the  Infinite  Spirit.  And  the  reaction 
is  not  independently  our  own,  but  depends  upon  God. 
God  stands  in  very  vital  relations  to  the  world  and  if 
we  accept  the  doctrine  of  immanence  at  its  full  value 
we  shall  think  of  the  physical,  social,  and  spiritual 
conditions  which  surround  us  as  the  sources  or  media 
through  which  a  revelation  of  God  is  being  constantly 
made.  God,  therefore,  is  the  only  source  and  ground 
of  our  knowledge  of  himself. 

Revelation  of  God  Through  Individual  Experience.  But 
the  question  now  before  us  is  concerning  the  partic- 
ular or  individualistic   aspects   of  this   experience. 

219 


220    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

There  is  in  experience  a  "common  to  all,"  to  use  the 
phrase  of  Ferrier.  But  is  there  also  a  "special  to 
me"?  Does  God  make  himself  known  directly  in  the 
spiritual  consciousness  of  the  particular  individual? 
The  affirmative  answer  to  this  question  is  believed  to 
be  the  truth  by  countless  numbers  of  men  who  declare 
that  they  have  found  forgiveness,  strength,  comfort, 
and  guidance  through  a  spiritual  fellowship  with 
God.  That  God  may  be  known  in  this  direct  fashion 
is  not  a  fact  which  can  be  verified  by  any  of  the  ordi- 
nary methods  of  sense.  It  is  a  fact  of  inner  expe- 
rience. Of  course  all  experience  is  in  a  sense  "inner" 
or  inward.  But  in  all  our  sense  experience  there  is 
always  an  objective  reference.  Perception  depends 
upon  the  existeuce  of  an  object  as  well  as  a  subject. 
But  when  knowledge  of  reality  has  been  gained  in 
consequence  of  sensation  we  may  call  the  experience 
"objective."  But  a  form  of  experience  which  does 
not  depend  directly  upon  sensation  we  may  call  "sub- 
jective," or,  in  popular  phrase,  an  experience  of  "the 
inner  life."  True,  the  reality  of  such  experiences  has 
been  called  into  question.  Let  us,  therefore,  first  of 
all  inquire  into  the  meaning  and  validity  of  what  we 
may  call  an  experience  of  the  inner  life. 

The  Objective  Reference  in  Sense-Experience.  In  our 
conscious  experience  there  are  two  sorts  of  mental 
activity  continually  going  on  at  the  same  time.  First, 
there  are  sensations,  which  through  the  creative  activ- 
ity of  the  mind  become  perceptions,  of  persons  and 
things  about  us.  On  the  basis  of  these  perceptions 
the  mind  builds  up  knowledge  of  the  world  about  us. 
These  perceptions  are  mental  events — ideas.  They 
have  no  objective  existence  in  space.  But  we  recognize 


INDIVIDUAL  EXPERIENCE  221 

that  while  they  themselves  have  no  objective  existence 
they  have  been  formed  or  created  by  the  mind  because 
something  came  to  the  mind  from  the  world  outside 
through  the  avenues  named  the  senses.  We  cannot 
have  perceptions  as  we  will.  There  is  always  an  abso- 
lute conditioning  of  our  mental  activity  in  this  respect 
by  existences  outside  the  mind.  Thus  in  the  case  of 
the  perception  of  a  red  signal  light  we  learn  that  it  is 
the  number  of  the  vibrations  in  ether  per  second 
which  determines  the  sort  of  stimulus  that  goes  to 
the  mind  by  way  of  the  nerves.  This  particular  stim- 
ulus the  mind  will  interpret  as  a  sensation  of  red. 
Twice  the  number  of  vibrations  per  second  (several 
trillions,  the  physicist  assures  us)  would  cause  the 
mind  to  perceive  blue  instead  of  red.  Thus  the  per- 
ception of  "objectively  real"  objects  depends  upon 
the  reception  of  suitable  stimulus  by  the  mind  through 
the  physical  organism. 

"Subjective"  Objects  of  Thought.  But  there  is  another 
sort  of  mental  event.  You  may  walk  down  the  street. 
On  the  way  you  may  pass  a  number  of  things.  But 
you  may  really  see  comparatively  little  because  your 
mind  is  engaged  with  your  own  thoughts.  You  are 
pondering  certain  matters,  thinking  out  a  plan,  per- 
haps, whereby  you  may  be  able  to  accomplish  an  object 
you  greatly  desire  to  attain.  Here  is  a  very  distinct 
and  real  mental  activity  which  is  not  dependent  upon 
any  stimulus  coming  into  the  mind  from  without,  as 
in  the  case  of  perception.  There  are,  however,  ob- 
jects of  thought  in  the  mind.  But  these  objects  are 
not  recognized  as  the  sources  of  sensations ;  they  are 
not,  therefore,  objectively  real  existences.  We  may 
employ  the  word  "subjective"  in  reference  to  them. 


222    FOUNDATIONS  OP  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

We  recognize  a  difference  between  these  "subjective" 
objects  of  thought  and  the  "objective"  objects  of 
thought.  And  the  difference  lies  in  this,  that  in  the 
case  of  the  "subjective"  objects  the  mind  makes  no 
objective  reference;  that  is,  there  is  no  referring  the 
experience  to  a  permanent  and  external  source  of 
mental  stimulus.  But  this  does  not  mean  that  the  one 
kind  of  mental  event  is  not  as  "real"  as  the  other. 
That  you  thought  out  a  certain  plan  as  you  walked 
downtown  is  just  as  real  a  fact  in  the  universe  as  that 
you  walk  downtown.  The  latter  fact  could  be  per- 
ceived and  known  by  anyone  who  happened  to  be  there 
at  the  time — it  was  a  "common  to  all."  The  former 
fact  was  known  only  to  you  and  could  become  known 
to  others  only  as  you  will  to  impart  it  to  them.  It  was 
a  "special  to  you." 

Meaning  of  Subjective  and  Objective.  From  this  it  will 
be  seen  that  the  distinction  sometimes  made  between 
objective  experience  as  real  and  subjective  experience 
as  not  real  is  uncritical  and  untenable.  For  what  is 
an  "objective"  experience,  as  distinguished  from  a 
"subjective"  experience?  Of  course  both  are  mental 
events  and  in  this  sense  are  equally  real.  But  the 
subjective  experience  has  its  origin  or  ground  within 
our  self,  while  the  objective  experience  cannot  be 
accounted  for  without  reference  to  an  order  of  activ- 
ities which  lies  without  the  self.  Those  mental  events 
which  have  their  inception  within  ourselves  are  more 
or  less  subject  to  our  control.  Memory  and  imagina- 
tion do  not  proceed  with  a  certain  independence  of 
our  initiative  as  sensation  does.  We  can  will  to 
remember  and  make  conscious  and  voluntary  effort 
to  imagine.     But  in  perception  we  find  many  mental 


INDIVIDUAL  EXPERIENCE  223 

events  which  arise  within  our  consciousness  from  no 
initiative  of  our  own.  Something  is  given  to  us — 
the  sun  as  it  shines,  the  voice  of  a  friend,  the  forcible 
contact  with  something  producing  pain.  On  the  basis 
of  this  our  mental  activity  proceeds.  And  when  we 
find  something  thus  acting  upon  us  without  our  ini- 
tiative or  control,  we  recognize  it  as  something  other 
than  ourselves.  In  other  words,  it  belongs  to  an  order 
of  existence  external  to  our  mental  life — that  is,  it  is 
objective.  And  whether  it  be  "real"  or  not  is  to  be 
determined  by  its  constancy  and  reliability  and  by 
the  whole  way  in  which  it  fits  into  the  totality  of  our 
rational  experience.  An  objective  experience,  then, 
is  a  mental  event  which  is  to  be  accounted  for  by 
reference  to  some  activity  not  our  own  which  affects 
us,  as  it  were,  from  the  outside.  Our  knowledge  of 
what  there  is  there  to  be  known  is  built  up  by  the 
mind  in  accordance  with  what  is  given  in  the  way  of 
affection  or  stimulus. 

Conversion  of  Paul.  And  now,  applying  this  bit  of 
thought  analysis  to  inner  experience,  let  us  take,  by 
way  of  concrete  instance,  the  conversion  of  Saul  of 
Tarsus.  It  has  been  not  infrequently  affirmed  with 
an  air  of  finality  that  that  event  was  a  "purely  sub- 
jective" experience  and  "therefore  had  no  basis  in 
objective  fact."  Let  us  recall  the  events  as  they  are 
recorded  in  the  New  Testament.  Saul  of  Tarsus  was 
carefully  trained  in  the  faith  of  Judaism.  He  be- 
came a  prominent  and  powerful  defender  of  his  an- 
cestral religion  against  the  inroads  of  the  new  faith 
of  the  followers  of  Christ.  He  participated  in  and 
even  led  the  bitter  persecution  which  broke  out 
against  the  Christians.     He  gave  his  vote  for  the 


224    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

stoning  of  Stephen  and  held  the  garments  of  those 
who  did  the  ghastly  work.  Armed  with  special 
authority,  he  pursued  the  followers  of  Christ,  deter- 
mined to  put  down  the  heresy  which  was  undermining 
Judaism.  On  one  occasion  he  was  nearing  Damascus, 
whither  he  had  gone  with  a  band  to  arrest  some 
Christians  who  had  fled  to  that  ancient  city.  He 
tells  us  that  suddenly  at  midday  he  saw  a  dazzling 
light,  brighter  than  that  of  the  sun,  and  heard  a  voice 
calling  to  him.  The  account  of  what  he  experienced 
is  recorded  in  three  separate  places  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment, in  the  book  of  Acts,  written  by  his  close  friend 
and  companion,  Luke,  the  physician.  There  are  some 
discrepancies,  but  the  maiu  points  are  the  same  in  each 
account. 

This  experience  marked  the  great  turning  point  in 
Paul's  career.  Everything  that  came  afterward  in 
his  life  was  absolutely  different  from  what  it  would 
have  been  had  Paul  never  had  this  experience.  From 
being  the  most  bitter  and  implacable  foe  of  the  new 
Christian  faith  he  takes  his  place  among  the  Chris- 
tians and  afterward  became  the  most  powerful 
preacher  of  the  gospel  of  Christ.  To  his  broad  vision 
and  tireless  energy  was  due  the  widening  of  Chris- 
tianity's sweep  so  that  within  a  few  years  of  the  death 
of  Christ  it  begins  its  victorious  progress  as  a  uni- 
versal religion  for  all  mankind. 

Perfectly  Real  to  Paul.  That  this  experience  was  per- 
fectly real  Paul  himself  never  had  the  slightest  doubt. 
He  refers  to  it  again  and  again  in  his  epistles.  Dur- 
ing all  the  years  in  which  he  devoted  his  life  to  the 
loyal  and  enthusiastic  service  of  Jesus  Christ  he 
looked  back  to  that  experience  on  the  Damascus  road. 


INDIVIDUAL  EXPERIENCE  225 

The  memory  of  it  brought  him  strength  and  new  cour- 
age in  many  a  trying  hour.  He  always  insisted  that 
he  had  met  Christ — that  Christ  had  definitely  spoken 
to  him,  and  called  him  to  the  great  mission  to  which  he 
afterward  devoted  all  of  his  strength.  However  that 
experience  of  Paul's  may  be  regarded,  the  fact  re- 
mains that  it  was  the  source  or  beginning  of  a  new 
order  of  things  in  his  life,  and  as  a  direct  result  of  it 
he  wrought  a  work  and  exerted  an  influence  in  the 
world  greater  than  that  of  any  other  man  who  ever 
lived,  with  the  single  exception  of  Jesus  Christ  him- 
self. 

To  have  asked  Paul  whether  that  experience  was 
"real"  would  have  brought  from  him  all  manner  of 
assurances  that  to  him  nothing  could  ever  be  any 
more  real.  To  have  intimated  that  it  rested  upon  no 
basis  of  objective  fact  would  have  been  no  doubt  to 
invite  his  most  vigorous  protests.  But  we  ask 
the  question  as  to  its  reality,  and  perhaps  we  must. 
The  word  "real"  is  often  a  pitfall.  We  have  tried  to 
set  forth  what  we  believe  the  words  "objectively  real" 
should  mean.  The  idea  of  existence  as  material  or 
stuff,  existing  in  a  reality  which  is  independent  of 
thought,  we  pass  by  as  hopelessly  uncritical.  Real- 
ity cannot  be  materiality.  We  have  seen  this  in  our 
study  of  the  foundations  of  knowledge.  Objective 
reality  means  the  order  of  existence  (and  existence 
can  be  known  only  through  activity)  which  lies  out- 
side of  ourselves.  When  we  can  confidently  refer  a 
mental  experience  for  its  source  to  some  activity 
which  lies  without  our  own  mental  activity,  we  may 
say  that  such  experience  is  objective  or  has  a  basis 
in  objective  fact. 


226    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

Objectively  Real.  From  all  that  we  learn  of  Paul's 
great  "subjective  experience"  are  we  justified  in  be- 
lieving that  it  had  its  source  or  origin  in  an  order  of 
activity  beyond  the  realm  of  Paul's  own  mental  life? 
And  now  some  one  comes  forward  to  ask  whether  we 
are  to  believe  that  the  light  Paul  said  he  saw  was 
actually  due  to  vibrations  in  the  ether.  That  it  was 
due  to  something  is  quite  certain,  and  that  something 
was  some  kind  of  stimulus  which  produced  precisely 
the  effect  which  vibrations  in  ether  ordinarily  do  upon 
the  organism  of  the  eye,  the  optic  nerve,  and  the  brain. 
If,  now,  we  believe  in  a  personal  God  who  was  mak- 
ing himself  known  through  Jesus  Christ  and  the  great 
spiritual  movement  in  history  which  flowed  from 
Christ's  life  and  teaching  and  death,  and  if  we  can 
recognize  that  this  great  movement  was  an  important 
part  of  God's  revelation,  and  that  the  man  Paul  was 
an  essential  factor  or  agent  in  this  great  movement, 
at  its  beginning,  then  it  does  not  become  difficult  nor 
does  it  seem  irrational  to  believe  that  the  effects  pro- 
duced in  the  consciousness  of  Paul  on  the  Damascus 
road  were  the  reactions  of  his  mind  to  certain  agen- 
cies. And  these  agencies  resulted  in  effects  which 
were  the  same  as  those  ordinarily  produced  by  the 
stimuli  which  give  rise  to  our  perceptions.  His  vision 
of  the  light,  his  hearing  of  the  voice — indeed,  the 
whole  experience,  measured  not  only  by  what  it 
seemed  to  be  at  the  time  but  by  the  mighty  results 
which  flowed  from  it  later,  rises  to  a  level  far  higher 
that  that  of  mere  illusion  or  hallucination.  It  was, 
in  a  rational  sense,  objectively  real. 

Was  a  Divine  Call  "Spoken"  to  Paul  ?  And  yet  we  may 
still  demur.    There  was  a  voice  which  he  heard.    Did 


INDIVIDUAL  EXPERIENCE  227 

that  mean  actual  vibrations  in  the  atmosphere?  Did 
it  mean  vocal  sound — spoken  words?  If  so,  a  lan- 
guage? In  his  defense  of  himself  before  Herod 
Agrippa  Luke  does  indeed  report  Paul  as  having  said 
that  the  words  he  heard  were  "in  the  Hebrew  tongue." 
The  record  also  declares  that  the  bystanders  did 
not  hear  the  voice.  Paul  says  he  did  hear  it.  It  was 
his  experience.  We  are  told  that  God  was  speak- 
ing to  him.  The  Bible  frequently  states  that  God 
spoke  to  men — to  Abraham,  Moses,  David,  Paul,  and 
others. 

God  "Spake";  the  Essential  Meaning.  Now,  what  does 
"spake"  mean  in  this  connection?  Shall  we  think 
that  God  needed  to  make  the  sounds  which  with  us 
stand  for  ideas?  What  is  the  essential  matter  when 
we  speak  to  each  other?  Is  it  not  the  conveying  of  the 
thought — the  feeling — the  inciting  of  the  will? 
Words  are  necessary  for  us.  They  are  a  vehicle  or 
medium  of  thought — more  or  less  imperfect,  to  be 
sure,  as  our  frequent  misunderstandings  show.  But 
the  essential  matter  when  we  speak  is  that  we  enable 
those  to  whom  we  speak  to  think  our  thoughts  after 
us,  and  share  our  feelings  with  us.  Language  is  the 
agency  through  which  we  effect  this.  When  God 
"spake,"  is  not  the  real  meaning  that  he  conveyed  his 
divine  thought,  feeling,  and  will  to  the  minds  of  those 
to  whom  he  spake?  If  this  effect  could  be  produced 
directly  by  the  immediate  action  of  spirit  upon  spirit, 
would  the  medium  of  language  be  necessary?  But 
might  not  the  impression  produced  now  and  again  in 
the  mind  of  a  man  be  so  clear  and  strong  that  a  man 
might  actually  conclude  that  words  had  been  spoken 
to  him?    And  there  would  be  all  the  more  reason  for 


228    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

this  conclusion  since  men  who  have  had  no  critical 
knowledge  of  the  mind  and  its  activity  naturally 
fancy  that  the  meaning  lies  in  words  and  that  words 
are  the  only  possible  way  to  "convey"  thought. 

May  we  think,  then,  that  God  "speaks"  to  men  to- 
day? Of  course  we  say  that  in  a  sense  God  speaks  to 
men  through  nature.  But  does  he  speak,  that  is,  make 
his  thought  and  will  known  directly  in  the  inward 
personal  life  of  the  individual?  There  are  many  men 
and  women  about  us  to-day  whose  characters  are  lofty 
and  whose  lives  devoted  to  the  service  of  good  who  say 
that  God  makes  himself  known  directly  to  them  in 
their  consciousness.  Of  course  there  can  be  no  logical 
proof  of  this.  The  inductive  method  of  scientific 
research  is  not  available  here.  But  the  fact  remains 
that  multitudes  of  men  have  borne  testimony  to  this 
experience  of  God's  presence  and  knowledge  of  his 
will  in  individual  consciousness.  We  are  schooled  to- 
day in  the  scientific  spirit.  This  spirit  dominates 
many  of  us  to  a  considerable  degree  even  in  the  esti- 
mates we  make  of  the  validity  of  phases  of  our  reli- 
gious life.  No  emotional  or  mystical  experience  passes 
unscrutinized  and  unchallenged  to-day.  When  we 
say  we  know  we  are  asked  to  give  the  grounds.  But 
sound  philosophy  teaches  us  that  any  theory  of  know- 
ing which  does  not  end  in  speculative  collapse,  rests, 
in  the  last  analysis,  upon  the  great  belief  that  beneath 
the  rational  order  about  us  which  we  come  to  know, 
lies  the  Infinite  thought  as  its  ground.  And  it  is  no 
more  unphilosophic  to  believe  that  God  does  make 
known  his  thought  and  will  to  men,  by  the  direct 
action  of  spirit  upon  spirit,  than  it  is  to  believe,  as  we 
must,  that  the  universe  is  rational  and  intelligible  to 


INDIVIDUAL  EXPERIENCE  229 

us  because  it  bears  the  impress  of  the  infinite  thought 
of  its  Creator. 

We  repeat,  then,  that  this  question  of  the  reality  of 
inner  spiritual  experiences  canot  be  settled  by  logical 
demonstration,  nor  by  a  show  of  hands.  No  man 
would  agree  to  determine  the  validity  of  certain  expe- 
riences of  his  inward  life  by  submitting  them  to  the 
vote  of  his  more  intelligent  neighbors.  In  some  realms 
of  thought  and  feeling,  the  soul  may  speak  with  an 
authority  all  its  own.  And  if  a  man  cannot  out  of 
the  richness  of  his  spiritual  experience  confirm  the 
testimony  of  those  who  say  they  have  known  God  at 
first  hand,  surely  he  ought  not  out  of  the  poverty  of 
his  spiritual  experience  to  deny  it  and  declare  it 
impossible.  There  is  such  a  condition  as  spiritual 
sensitiveness.  Those  who  live  near  to  God  are  more 
sensitive  to  God's  inner  revelations  than  those  who 
do  not  so  live.  Of  course  by  "near"  to  God  we  mean 
closer  in  the  personal  relations  of  the  spirit.  Near- 
ness to  God  is  a  matter  of  love,  loyalty,  and  obedience 
to  him.  God  spoke  to  those  who  lived  nearer  to  him. 
They  were  spiritually  in  a  closer  fellowship  with  him 
through  their  love  to  him  and  obedience  to  his  divine 
will.  This  gave  them  a  spiritual  sensitiveness  far 
beyond  that  of  their  fellows. 

Prayer 

It  was  Heinrich  Heine  who  said  that  when  men  call 
for  help  to  the  Unseen,  "no  one  but  a  fool  really  ex- 
pects an  answer."  As  over  against  these  sad  and 
bitter  words,  standing  forth  as  they  do  in  lonely  iso- 
lation,  there   are   the  testimonies   of   the   countless 


230    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

myriads  who  have  called  to  the  Unseen,  and  have  kept 
calling  in  prayer  all  the  days  of  their  lives.  And  these 
have  borne  testimony  not  only  by  their  deeds  but  by 
their  words  that  response  comes  when  men  really 
pray  to  God. 

We  take  up  the  subject  of  prayer  not  with  the  pur- 
pose of  setting  forth  some  purely  intellectual  concep- 
tion of  prayer  which  may  satisfy  us  logically.  Stud- 
ied from  anything  else  than  the  point  of  view  of 
Christian  experience,  prayer  soon  seems  to  be  super- 
fluous. We  hope  only  to  suggest  some  truths  about 
the  Christian  conception  of  prayer  and  to  indicate 
some  reasons  for  thinking  that  the  conviction  that 
God  reveals  himself  to  individual  men  and  women  in 
that  communion  of  spirit  with  spirit  which  we  call 
prayer  is  not  an  irrational  belief,  but  one  which  finds 
its  justification  in  experience. 

But  the  word  "prayer"  stands  for  such  a  variety  of 
ideas.  The  history  of  prayer  would  really  be  the  story 
of  the  development  of  religion  itself.  Prayer  in  prim- 
itive religion  is  an  accompaniment  of  sacrifice  and 
means  (1)  both  asking  for  some  benefit  or  blessing 
and  (2)  expressing  the  feeling  of  gratitude  and  de- 
pendence. Naturally,  the  view  of  prayer  as  petition 
greatly  predominates  in  all  the  lower  levels  of  reli- 
gious culture.  The  Divine  Being  is  powerful  and  his 
assistance  for  the  accomplishment  of  desired  ends  is 
constantly  being  invoked. 

The  Christian  View  of  Prayer.  But  we  are  studying 
the  Christian  Revelation  of  God— and  the  ques- 
tion now  under  consideration  is  whether  there  is  sub- 
stantial foundation  for  the  Christian  belief  that  God 
reveals  himself  in  the  consciousness  of  the  individual 


INDIVIDUAL  EXPERIENCE  231 

in  response  to  prayer.  Prayer  in  some  form  is  a  part 
of  all  religion.  But  it  is  not  prayer  in  general  but 
prayer  from  the  Christian  standpoint  which  concerns 
us  now.  And  what  is  the  Christian  conception  of 
prayer?  We  can  go  to  no  higher  source  than  to 
Christ  himself.  We  shall  summarize  the  spirit  of  his 
teaching  and  example  concerning  prayer  rather  than 
cite  his  words  in  defense  of  particular  points. 

Always  According  to  God's  Will.  Prayer  gains  its 
meaning  from  a  consideration  of  the  whole  purpose  of 
God's  revelation  of  himself.  That  is,  according  to 
Christ,  the  spiritual  development  of  men  as  "sons"  of 
the  Divine  Father.  That  means  the  growth  in  men  of 
love  and  trust  and  obedience.  The  main  factor  in 
this  spiritual  development  of  men  is  that  they  learn 
to  do  the  Father's  will.  This  doing  of  the  will  of  God 
in  all  its  fullness  means  that  ideal  state  of  human 
society  which  Jesus  summed  up  in  the  pregnant 
phrase  "the  kingdom  of  God."  Nothing  can  be  Chris- 
tian prayer,  therefore,  which  is  asking  contrary  to  the 
Father's  will.  All  our  prayers,  if  we  are  Christians, 
must  be  in  the  spirit  of  Christ's  own  matchless  prayer 
— "Not  my  will  but  thine  be  done." 

We  cannot  believe  that  prayer  can  be  offered  to 
inform  God  of  our  needs  nor  to  change  his  attitude 
toward  us,  reducing  his  reluctance  to  grant  us  the 
best.  "Your  Father  knoweth  that  ye  have  need  of 
these  things."  Nor  may  we  tell  God  how  we  wish 
things  done;  as  for  example,  that  we  want  him  to 
effect  a  cure  at  once  without  the  use  of  the  usual 
medical  agencies.  Many  so-called  prayers  seem  to 
imply  that  God's  part  is  to  listen  to  us  and  do  what 
we  say.    There  is  no  Christian  prayer  in  the  absence 


232    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

of  a  reverent  willingness  to  leave  matters  in  the  hands 
of  the  Father  who  loves  and  knows  what  is  best. 

Prayer  Not  a  Form  of  Physical  Energy.  These  great 
conditions  of  prayer  will  help  us  to  answer  the  doubts 
concerning  the  utility  of  prayers  of  petition.  There 
are  some  things  we  cannot  pray  for  after  we  have 
gained  the  personal  and  immanent  conception  of  God. 
We  will  not  pray  for  the  suspension  of  any-of  the  great 
laws  of  the  universe — gravitation,  chemical  affinity, 
etc.  Nor  will  we  imagine  that  prayer  can  in  any  way 
take  the  place  of  physical  energy,  and  enable  us  to 
secure  results  without  putting  forth  all  necessary 
effort  to  briii g  them  to  pass.  To  pray  for  deliverance 
from  a  typhoid  epidemic  without  tireless  search  for 
germ  infection  in  food  or  water  supply  would  fall  far 
below  the  level  of  Christian  prayer.  For  a  church  to 
pray  for  social  betterment  in  its  city  and  put  forth 
no  strenuous  efforts  to  make  conditions  more  sanitary 
and  morally  wholesome  would  be  a  travesty  upon 
Christian  prayer. 

And  this  brings  us  to  the  considerations  commonly 
urged  against  the  belief  that  through  prayer  any  effect 
can  be  produced  in  "objective"  reality.  There  is  a 
fair  agreement  that  prayer  may  at  times  soothe,  com- 
fort, and  inspire,  but  many  cannot  see  that  any  results 
are  produced  in  the  "objective"  world  from  its  use. 
Thus  it  is  objected  that  our  modern  scientific  concep- 
tions of  "natural  law,"  "uniformity  of  nature,"  "con- 
servation of  energy,"  etc.,  forbid  us  to  believe  that 
the  slightest  variation  may  be  produced  in  the  order 
of  natural  sequences  by  such  an  agency  as  prayer. 
Now,  it  is  very  certain  that  prayer  is  not  a  form  of 
energy   and   therefore   prayer   simply   itself   has   no 


INDIVIDUAL  EXPERIENCE  233 

power  to  effect  any  physical  change  whatever.  Prayer 
must  be  regarded  as  entirely  spiritual  in  its  influ- 
ence. Hence  any  changes  in  a  physical  order  which 
we  may  think  of  as  the  result  of  prayer  will  come  be- 
cause prayer  has  influenced  a  personal  agency,  human 
or  divine,  and  through  the  self-directed  activity  of  this 
personal  agency  the  change  has  taken  place.  From 
our  personal  Theistic  standpoint,  therefore,  this  ob- 
jection urged  in  the  name  of  science  resolves  itself  at 
once  into  one  to  be  treated  by  philosophy.  The  ques- 
tion whether  any  change  in  the  natural  order  of  things 
can  take  place  as  the  result  of  prayer  means  this :  May 
we  reasonably  believe  that  the  immanent  God,  whose 
wisdom  and  purpose  the  laws  of  nature  constantly 
express,  will  permit  any  variation  whatever  in  natural 
events  under  the  influence  of  our  prayers? 

Knowledge  of  God's  Purposes  May  Limit  Our  Prayers. 
We  can  only  say  in  answer  that  God  certainly  will 
not  permit  any  variation  in  the  course  of  nature  which 
would  not  be  for  the  good  of  the  world,  considered  in 
its  entirety.  The  science  of  meteorology  tells  us  how 
perfect  is  the  domain  of  law  even  among  storms  which 
seem  to  us  so  capricious  in  their  coming  and  going. 
To  fancy  that  a  storm  could  be  swung  out  of  its  reg- 
ular path  in  order  to  water  the  crops  of  a  community 
that  had  prayed  for  rain,  thereby  leaving  dry  the 
crops  of  sections  which  had  not  so  prayed,  is  to  believe 
that  God  is  ready  to  introduce  confusion  in  place  of 
order  in  his  great  domain  of  nature. 

And  yet  we  believe  that  our  prayers  are  followed 
by  results  which  we  must  recognize  as  answers.  In 
no  case,  however,  can  we  believe  that  we  have  swerved 
God  from  a  previous  purpose  and  by  our  prayers  in- 


234    FOUNDATIONS  OP  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

duced  him  to  do  a  thing  he  otherwise  would  not  have 
done.  God  never  abdicates  in  our  favor  even  for  a 
moment.  But  God  does  work  through  human  agencies 
in  bringing  about  results.  And  the  human  agent  is 
not  a  mere  machine  transmitting  in  a  purely  mechan- 
ical way  the  energy  exerted  upon  it.  "We  are  the 
workers  together  with  God."  Into  how  many  out- 
comes human  agency  enters  we  cannot  say,  but  their 
number  is  vastly  greater  than  the  number  of  those 
events  which  come  to  pass  uninfluenced  by  human  will 
and  effort.  To  pray  God  to  preserve  the  lives  of  all 
on  board  an  outgoing  steamship  and  bring  them  to 
port  in  safety  is  a  perfectly  natural  and  proper 
prayer.  Indeed,  to  pray  God  to  save,  deliver,  guide, 
keep,  preserve  from  harm,  restore  to  health,  to  pray 
for  anything  we  need  and  can  believe  is  for  our  best 
good  is  a  perfectly  natural  and  proper  prayer.  When 
a  human  soul  has  cried  to  God  out  of  great  need  let 
us  remember  that  there  is  one  more  fact  in  the  moral 
universe,  and  with  this  one  more  fact  God  has  given 
assurances  that  he  would  reckon.  We  know  that  in 
mechanics  another  force  added  to  those  already  oper- 
ating will  modify  the  direction  of  the  resultant  force. 
We  cannot  tell  what  influence  facts  in  the  world  of 
personal  Spirit  may  not  exert  upon  outcomes  even  in 
the  world  of  physical  existence. 

Answers  to  Prayer  a  Fact  of  Experience.  In  this  matter 
of  assurance  that  answers  to  prayer  do  come  our  own 
experience  is  the  only  testimony  which  brings  full 
and  final  conviction.  Religious  books  written  by 
pious  people  to  prove  this  point,  and  filled  with  a  lot 
of  anecdotes  of  miraculous  answers  to  prayer,  may  be 
of  some  interest  and  cause  us  to  wonder  as  we  read 


INDIVIDUAL  EXPERIENCE  235 

them,  but  they  are  not  convincing.  At  this  point 
an  intelligent  use  of  the  Scriptures  can  bring  us 
some  very  valuable  assurances.  The  Bible  was 
written  by  men  who  bear  clear  testimony  that  they 
knew  God  in  the  experience  of  their  inward  life; 
and  we  learn  that  they  were  men  in  whose  lives  prayer 
formed  an  important  place.  They  tell  us  of  responses 
from  God  to  their  prayers.  We  study  the  lives  of 
these  men — like  Moses,  Amos  and  Hosea,  Isaiah  and 
Jeremiah,  Peter  and  Paul,  and  others.  We  realize 
the  tremendousness  of  their  work  and  see  how  it  was 
performed  in  the  face  of  unspeakable  discouragements 
and  opposition.  And  we  cannot  understand  how  they 
could  do  all  that  they  accomplished  had  it  not  been 
that  they  did  receive  from  time  to  time  those  responses 
from  God  which  gave  them  insight  and  moral  and 
physical  strength  which  made  them  sufficient  for  their 
mighty  tasks.  And  the  biographies  of  some  of  the 
great  leaders  of  modern  times  who  were  men  of  prayer 
and  who  accomplished  great  things  for  humanity  may 
bring  us  the  same  assurances.  Could  these  men  have 
done  all  that  they  did  had  they  not  felt  very  sure  that 
they  were  receiving  responses  from  God  when  they 
prayed  to  him?  Jesus  Christ  prayed  very  often  and 
taught  his  disciples  to  pray.  In  that  supreme  hour 
of  his  life  in  the  garden  of  Gethsemane  he  prayed  with 
all  the  intensity  of  his  spirit  that  he  might  be  spared 
the  fearful  cup  of  suffering  which  he  knew  was  com- 
ing. But  he  was  not  spared.  Was  that  prayer  of  the 
lonely  Son  of  man  unanswered?  No  prayer  was  ever 
more  fully  answered,  as  the  succeeding  hours  of  his 
matchless  life  showed.  Christ's  example  and  teaching 
assure  us  that  we  may  pray  for  everything  we  need, 


236  FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

in  loving  submission  to  the  Father's  will.  The  reli- 
gious man  or  woman  needs  not  to  ask  the  scientist  or 
philosopher  what  to  pray  for.  We  pray  for  every- 
thing. God  knows  what  is  best  for  us.  And  the  peti- 
tion is  really  Christian  prayer  only  when  we  are  will- 
ing to  leave  all  outcomes  in  his  hands. 

Another  Objection.  But  another  objection  is  often 
urged.  If  God  knows  what  is  best,  and  God's  love 
will  do  the  best,  why  do  we  need  to  pray  at  all?  Why 
not  just  trust  the  Divine  Wisdom  and  Love  and  not 
trouble  ourselves  to  bring  in  petitions  to  him?  Here 
we  must  again  remind  ourselves  that  the  great  pur- 
pose of  the  divine  revelation  is  moral.  It  is  not  that 
men  should  live  in  comfort  and  enjoyment,  but  that 
moral  character  should  be  developed.  And  character 
can  be  developed  only  as  men  strive  in  conscious  effort 
to  achieve  the  ends  set  before  them.  The  passive 
reception  of  ready-made  blessings  cannot  strengthen 
moral  fiber.  God  grants  us  the  gift  only  when  we 
want  it  so  intensely  as  to  be  willing  to  work  faithfully 
to  obtain  it.  It  is  a  moral  impossibility  for  God  to 
guide  men  in  their  moral  development  and  spiritual 
growth  as  "sons"  without  demanding  a  cooperation 
on  our  part.  We  simply  have  to  be  "workers  together 
with  God."  God  works  in  us  and  through  us,  but  we 
too  must  "work  out  our  salvation."  And  earnest  and 
intense  prayer  to  God  is  a  part  of  this  working  out 
process.  Not  to  overcome  the  divine  reluctance,  but 
to  bring  ourselves  to  the  point  where  the  giving  of  the 
blessing  asked  will  contribute  to  our  spiritual  growth 
— this  is  the  deeper  meaning  of  prayer.  In  the  full- 
est sense  prayer  involves  the  whole  personality.  All 
our  activities  are  to  converge  toward  realizing  great 


INDIVIDUAL  EXPERIENCE  237 

and  worthy  purposes.  In  this  way  prayer  may  become 
the  whole  spirit  of  a  life  devoted  to  worthy  service — 
and  we  may  indeed  "pray  without  ceasing."  "The 
great  end  of  religious  effort  is  a  developed  soul,  a 
soul  with  a  deep  sense  of  God,  a  soul  in  which  faith, 
courage,  and  resolution  are  at  their  highest." 

''Subjective"  Value  of  Prayer.  A  final  word  in  regard 
to  the  so-called  "reflex"  or  "subjective"  value  of 
prayer.  Every  change  in  those  events  which  depend 
in  any  way  upon  human  agency  results  from  mental 
activity  first — perception,  feeling,  and  an  act  of  the 
will.  In  this  sense  all  "objective"  change  through 
human  activity  springs  from  subjective  origins.  The 
general  of  the  great  army  lays  his  plans  and  issues 
his  orders.  The  outcome  of  the  battle — an  "object- 
ive" effect — is  almost  wholly  determined  by  his  insight 
and  skillful  planning,  which  are  "subjective."  That 
prayer  works  marked  changes  in  one's  mental  condi- 
tion is  undisputed.  When  courage,  deeper  insight, 
and  fixed  determination  come  to  a  man  as  the  result 
of  his  earnest  prayer,  the  results  are  bound  to  be  ob- 
jective as  well  as  subjective. 

In  conclusion,  we  suggest  that  because  genuine 
prayer  is  not  using  a  form  of  energy,  but,  rather, 
entering  into  a  spiritual  experience  the  best  justifica- 
tion of  its  validity  is  not  to  reason  about  the  expe- 
rience but  to  enter  into  it.  He  who  really  prays  will 
not  long  remain  in  doubt  as  to  the  utility  of  prayer. 
Increasing  knowledge  of  the  way  God  works  in  his 
great  world  of  nature  may  render  it  impossible  for 
us  to  ask  God  with  confidence  to  do  certain  things. 
But  if  we  do  not  forget  the  great  teaching  of  Christ 
that  God  the  Divine  Father  cares  for  all  the  concerns 


238  FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

of  our  lives,  and  desires  above  all  else  that  we  should 
grow  in  spiritual  character,  we  may  confidently  pray 
for  everything  which  seems  to  us  to  be  best,  trusting 
that  the  larger  wisdom  of  God  will  insure  the  best  as 
the  answer. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  BIBLE  AS  A  RECORD  OF  DIVINE 
REVELATION 

It  is  a  fundamental  and  essential  doctrine  of  Chris- 
tianity that  the  Bible  contains  a  record  of  divine 
revelation.  Christianity  teaches  that  God  has  made 
himself  known,  not  only  through  the  activities  of  the 
natural  universe,  but  in  the  experiences  of  our  human 
life.  This  is  a  part  of  Christian  faith  and  is  founded 
in  the  last  analysis  upon  religious  experience  itself. 
Now,  all  experience  is  individual.  We  may  use  such 
universal  expressions  as  "race  experience,"  but  such 
a  phrase  can  mean  only  those  elements  of  human  ex- 
perience which  are  common  to  many  or  all  members 
of  the  race.  We  have  no  objection  to  the  use  of  such 
universal  terms,  provided  we  remember  that  concrete 
reality  always  means  that  an  experience  comes  as  the 
result  of  the  affecting  of  the  individual  mind.  A 
divine  revelation  which  affords  knowledge  of  God  is 
an  experience  of  the  individual;  and  the  revelation 
as  fact  must  of  course  precede  revelation  as  record. 
It  is  evident  that  if  we  are  to  have  any  knowledge  of 
the  religious  experiences  of  the  men  of  former  ages, 
it  must  be  through  records  which  come  down  to  us 
from  those  ages.  The  Bible  contains  many  such 
records.     Speaking  exactly,  therefore,  the  Bible  is 

239 


240    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

a  literature  in  which  are  recorded  many  facts  of  his- 
tory and  experiences  of  individuals  in  which  we  be- 
lieve God  has  revealed  himself. 

The  Bible  a  Record  of  Human  Experiences  in  which  God 
Has  Made  Himself  Known.  Now  as  to  the  manner  in 
which  divine  revelation  takes  place,  we  can  only 
say  that  it  is  those  experiences  which  yield  knowledge 
of  God.  Our  study  of  the  ground  and  implications  of 
knowledge  has  shown  us  how  impossible  is  the  notion 
that  ready  made  knowledge  can  be  passed  into  the 
mind.  This  idea  prevailed  in  the  theologies  of  former 
days  and  survives  to  a  considerable  degree.  It  used 
to  be  taught  that  all  the  important  doctrines  of  Chris- 
tianity were  communicated  in  this  fashion  by  a  sort 
of  spiritual  dictation  to  the  prophets,  apostles  or 
"sacred  penmen."  We  have  seen  that  one  of  the  great 
outcomes  of  modern  philosophical  inquiry  into  the 
knowing  process  is  the  truth  that  knowledge  emerges 
only  as  the  result  of  the  constructive  work  of  the 
mind,  in  reaction  over  against  the  activities  which 
affect  the  mind  from  without.  Now,  what  bearing 
has  this  upon  the  manner  of  revelation?  Just  this, 
that  while  God  is  the  ground  or  source  of  every  expe- 
rience through  which  we  gain  knowledge  of  him,  yet 
he  does  not  pass  or  convey  ready-made  truth  to  the 
human  mind,  the  mind  itself  remaining  the  passive 
recipient  of  his  messages.  If  we  think  of  God  as 
immanent,  we  must  not  conceive  him  as  far  removed 
from  us  and  needing  to  employ  various  intermediary 
agencies  to  make  known  his  thought  and  will.  God 
is  very  near  to  the  spiritually  sensitive  and  may 
"speak"  directly.  Revelation  is,  according  to  this 
view,  an  experience  of  the  inner  life — or,  in  usual 


THE  BIBLE  AS  A  RECORD  241 

phrase,  a  spiritual  experience.  But  while  very  many 
revelations  of  God  are  of  this  inner  sort,  and  our  con- 
ception of  immanence  bids  us  recognize  divine  reve- 
lation in  the  whole  range  of  man's  spiritual  capacities, 
yet  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  God  has  also  used 
methods  which,  because  they  seem  to  us  more  unusual 
and  striking,  we  call  supernatural.  But  even  in  case 
the  supernatural  event  merely  serves  as  an  unusual 
stimulus  to  the  human  mind,  and  the  real  content  of 
the  revelation  is  born  in  thought  and  feeling.  In 
other  words,  it  is  an  experience  of  the  inner  life,  just 
the  same  as  before.  However  we  conceive  of  the 
human  spirit,  the  Spirit  of  God  must  be  thought  of 
as  the  ground  or  source  of  all  experiences  in  which 
we  gain  knowledge  of  God. 

We  repeat  then,  that  if  the  experiences  of  the  men 
of  former  ages  in  which  they  have  found  knowledge 
of  God  are  to  be  known  to  us,  it  can  be  only  through 
the  fact  that  these  experiences  have  been  recorded 
and  the  records  have  come  down  to  us.  In  this  way 
we  may  learn  how  God  led  and  taught  and  inspired 
those  who  have  gone  before  us.  In  this  way  also  we 
come  to  know  facts  of  human  history  in  which  the 
purposes  of  God  for  the  training  of  men  in  spiritual 
things  may  be  most  clearly  discerned.  Now,  the  Bible 
contains  records  which  are  most  extraordinary  in 
their  religious  significance.  For  these  records  alone, 
of  all  the  writings  which  have  come  down  to  us,  enable 
us  to  know  how  that  nation  of  antiquity  which  was 
the  greatest  in  religion  and  morality  grew  in  their 
knowledge  of  God  and  their  faith  in  Him.  These 
records  also  tell  us  of  Jesus  Christ  the  Son  of  God, 
and  the  new  spiritual  energy  which  became  mani- 


242    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

fested  among  men  as  the  result  of  Ms  life,  teaching, 
and  death. 

It  is  not  our  present  purpose  to  offer  anything  like 
a  complete  discussion  of  the  Bible  as  containing  a 
record  of  divine  revelation.  That  would  require  far 
more  space  than  the  limits  of  these  studies  can  allow. 
Much  excellent  material  has  been  written  upon  a 
modern  and  tenable  view  of  the  Bible.  The  older 
dogmatic  view  of  the  Bible  has  pretty  generally  lost 
its  authority  and  the  historical  view  gained  by 
modern  scholarship  has  taken  its  place.  We  shall 
attempt  to  present  a  few  important  considerations 
which  will  enable  us  more  clearly  to  see  the  truth  in 
the  great  teaching  of  Christianity  concerning  the 
Bible.  This  teaching  is  that  through  the  Bible  alone 
we  gain  a  knowledge  of  God  and  of  his  relation  to  men 
sufficient  for  the  moral  and  spiritual  needs  of  the 
human  spirit. 

The  Facts  About  the  Bible.  First  let  us  seek  the  facts 
concerning  the  Bible.  We  call  the  Bible  a  book,  but 
it  is  not  a  book  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  a  literary 
composition  by  one  author.  The  Bible  is  really  a  liter- 
ature. It  is  a  collection  of  sixty-six  writings  by  fifty 
or  more  different  authors,  extending  over  a  period 
of  more  than  a  thousand  years.  These  writings  are 
in  many  literary  forms — stories,  poems,  proverbs, 
hymns,  sermons,  drama,  history,  apocalypses,  letters. 
The  one  thing  which  unites  them  is  the  fact  that  all 
are  predominantly  religious.  The  early  stories  are 
told  primarily  to  show  God's  dealings  with  the  an- 
cestors of  the  Hebrew  people.  The  history  was 
written  not  merely  to  record  the  events  but  to  set 
forth  the  manner  in  which  God  had  led  the  nation 


THE  BIBLE  AS  A  RECORD  243 

through  all  its  days  of  growth  and  change.  The  dis- 
courses of  the  prophets,  or  preachers,  show  a  moral 
earnestness  and  a  lofty  ethical  conception  of  God 
absolutely  without  parallel  in  any  other  literature. 
The  Gospels  give  us  a  record  of  the  life,  teachings,  and 
death  of  the  man  Jesus  Christ.  There  is  no  adequate 
explanation  of  him  and  of  all  that  has  come  into  the 
world  as  the  result  of  his  life,  except  to  believe  that  in 
him  God  made  a  unique  and  supreme  revelation  to 
men.  The  New  Testament  centers  about  Christ  and 
Christianity,  finds  its  origin  and  ultimate  ground  in 
him.  Thus  we  see  that  the  biblical  records  have  to  do 
with  two  great  subjects:  (1)  the  story  of  the  life  of 
the  Hebrew  people,  especially  the  development  of  their 
religion,  and  (2)  the  life,  teachings,  and  death  of 
Jesus  Christ  and  the  growth  of  the  mighty  spiritual 
movement  which  flowed  directly  from  him. 

The  Bible  Interpreted  in  the  Light  of  Experience.  Now 
just  as  the  Bible  found  its  origin  in  the  spiritual  expe- 
riences of  the  many  wTho  wrote  it  from  age  to  age,  so 
the  Bible  brings  a  divine  message  to  those  in  whose 
minds  some  special  experiences  are  born  as  the  result 
of  the  acceptance  of  the  truths  about  God.  There  can 
be  no  adequate  perception  of  the  divine  revelation  in 
the  Scriptures  and  no  appreciation  of  its  divine 
authority  except  through  the  coming  of  spiritual 
experiences  similar  in  kind  to  those  from  which  the 
record  first  originated.  Thus,  for  example,  the  Gospel 
of  John  was  written  to  convince  men  that  Jesus 
Christ  was  the  divine  Son  of  God  and  the  Saviour  of 
the  world.  And  it  is  only  when  a  conviction  of  this 
truth  begins  to  possess  the  spirit  of  a  man  that  he 
perceives  the  real  meaning  of  the  Gospel  of  John. 


244    FOUNDATIONS  OP  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

The  revelation  in  the  Bible  is  not  a  cogent  array  of 
facts  and  arguments  which  must  compel  the  mind  to 
see  God.  It  is,  rather,  a  record  of  the  way  men  have 
found  God  in  spiritual  experience.  And  when  one 
turns  to  the  Bible  with  honest  desire  to  know  God's 
will,  the  revelation  will  give  evidence  of  its  supreme 
value.  Experience,  then,  is  the  only  ground  of  cer- 
tainty with  regard  to  the  divine  revelation.  We  read 
the  Bible  and  grasp  its  truths  and  as  a  result  we  have 
experiences  which  otherwise  could  not  be  ours.  This 
is  the  only  valid  ground  of  biblical  authority. 

Authority  of  Bible  Not  Grounded  in  Inerrancy.  In  view 
of  this,  we  may  see  how  futile  are  the  attempts  to 
ground  the  authority  of  the  Bible  on  any  external 
matters  such  as  verbal  inerrancy  or  moral  infallibil- 
ity. The  claim  that  the  Bible  is  verbally  inerrant  is 
so  foolish  and  contrary  to  the  plainest  facts  that  only 
those  who  are  ignorant  of  the  Bible  itself  continue  to 
urge  it.  If  we  are  to  find  verbal  inerrancy  anywhere 
in  the  Scriptures,  we  would  certainly  expect  to  find 
it  in  the  reports  of  important  utterances  of  Jesus. 
But  one  has  only  to  compare  the  record  of  Christ's 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  as  it  appears  in  Matthew  with 
the  record  of  it  in  Luke  to  see  that  on  the  basis  of 
verbal  accuracy,  one  or  the  other  of  the  evangelists 
must  be  wrong.  And  just  what  the  inscription  on  the 
cross  over  the  head  of  Jesus  really  was  we  shall  never 
know,  though  all  four  evangelists  state  what  it  was. 
But  each  states  it  differently.  These  examples  could 
be  multiplied  indefinitely.  Verbal  inerrancy  is  wholly 
untenable. 

The  Bible  Is  First  a  Human  Record.  But  the  very  seri- 
ous difficulties  which  arise  when  we  try  to  hold  to  any 


THE  BIBLE  AS  A  RECORD  245 

theories  of  verbal  inerrancy  or  moral  infallibility  of 
the  Bible  disappear  when  we  begin  to  perceive  two 
important  truths,  (1)  that  the  Bible,  even  though  it 
contains  the  record  of  divine  revelation,  is  a  very 
human  book,  and  (2)  that  the  divine  revelation  is  pro- 
gressive, exhibiting  that  incompleteness  which  we 
always  expect  in  the  earlier  stages  of  a  growing  thing. 
That  the  Bible  is  a  human  book  and  grew  out  of 
human  life  is  very  evident  from  the  records  them- 
selves. They  bear  the  marks  of  humanity  and  their 
materials  were  gathered  in  a  perfectly  natural  and 
human  way.  Thus  the  materials  of  the  early  nar- 
ratives of  Genesis  must  have  been  traditions  handed 
down  from  father  to  son  for  many  generations  before 
they  finally  found  their  place  in  the  narratives  of  the 
prophetic  and  priestly  authors  of  Genesis.  And  the 
laws  of  the  code  cannot  be  regarded  as  formulations 
in  the  desert  in  anticipation  of  the  myriad  moral  and 
religious  requirements  of  generations  yet  to  come. 
These  laws,  rather,  grew  out  of  life,  and  are  the 
crystallization,  as  it  were,  of  the  moral  and  religious 
needs  of  the  nation  after  it  had  undergone  a  consid- 
erable religious  development.  They  were  formulated 
when  they  were  needed.  So  of  the  great  moral  mes- 
sages of  the  prophets.  They  are  far  more  weighty  and 
significant,  coming,  as  they  did,  out  of  the  national 
emergencies  and  moral  crises  than  they  could  have 
been  as  miraculous  foretelling  of  events  which  were 
to  happen  in  a  later  age.  The  writings  of  Paul  were 
born  of  the  practical  and  emergency  needs  of  his  mis- 
sionary labors.  They  were  for  the  most  part  intended 
to  serve  as  instruction,  comfort,  and  establishment  in 
the  faith  of  new  converts  to  Christianity.     And  the 


246    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

Gospels  themselves  were  not  formal  historical  treat- 
ises but  efforts  to  preserve  the  traditions  of  the  eye- 
witnesses of  Jesus's  teachings  and  life,  in  order  that 
those  who  came  later  might  also  know  what  Jesus  had 
done  and  taught  while  he  was  upon  the  earth.  And 
not  only  does  the  way  in  which  the  separate  writings 
of  the  Bible  came  into  existence  indicate  a  thoroughly 
human  book,  but  the  way  in  which  they  were  brought 
together  into  an  authoritative  collection  or  "canon" 
points  to  the  same  truth. 

The  literary  composition  of  the  Old  Testament  be- 
gan in  the  ninth  century.1  At  first  some  records  were 
prepared  setting  forth  the  patriarchal  period  and  the 
early  history  of  the  nation.  There  were  probably 
some  earlier  and  simpler  records,  and,  of  course,  there 
were  traditions  in  which  stories  of  the  earlier  days 
had  been  handed  down  for  generations.  These  were 
the  materials  used  in  the  preparation  of  the  first 
histories.  These  records  were  afterward  combined 
with  later  histories  to  form  the  first  six  books  of  the 
Bible  as  we  now  have  them.  The  authors  were  of  the 
prophetic  school,  but  their  names  we  do  not  know  and 
never  shall.  Amos  and  Hosea  were  probably  the  first 
of  the  prophets  to  write  down  some  of  their  discourses. 
A  collection  of  their  most  notable  messages  was 
finally  made.  Later  the  messages  of  other  prophets 
were  reduced  to  writing. 

After  the  Babylonian  exile  the  priests  became  the 
religious  leaders  of  the  nation.  And  under  their  influ- 
ence other  historical  records  were  prepared.  These 
histories,  with  the  earlier  version  of  the  law  ( Deuter- 


1  A  few  fragmentary  writings  now  incorporated  in  the  Old  Testament  probably 
originated  from  an  earlier  age. 


THE  BIBLE  AS  A  RECORD  247 

onoiuy)  and  the  later  or  priestly  interpretation  of  the 
law  (Leviticus),  are  soon  found  in  a  collection  called 
the  Torah,  or  Law,  and  recognized  as  divinely  author- 
itative. Later  on  (in  the  third  century)  the  dis- 
courses of  the  prophets  were  added  to  the  sacred  col- 
lection. But  the  other  writings  of  the  Old  Testament 
as  we  now  have  it  were  not  agreed  upon  until  about 
a  hundred  years  before  Christ.  And  for  generations, 
among  the  religious  teachers  of  Judaism,  there  re- 
mained differences  of  opinion  as  to  whether  Ecclesi- 
astes,  Song  of  Solomon,  and  Esther  ought  to  be 
included  in  the  canon  or  sacred  collection. 

Nor  is  the  case  at  all  different  with  the  New  Testa- 
ment. The  apostle  Paul  on  his  second  and  third  mis- 
sionary journeys  wrote  a  number  of  letters  to  the 
churches  he  had  founded  in  different  cities  of  Asia 
Minor  and  Greece.  These  letters  were  written  with- 
out any  thought  whatever  that  they  would  ever  be 
included  in  sacred  Scripture  and  accorded  divine 
authority  like  the  Old  Testament.  Let  us  take  a  con- 
crete example.  A  few  months  after  Paul  had  left 
Thesssalonica  word  was  received  and  passed  around 
in  the  little  group  of  Christians  in  that  city  that  a 
long  letter  had  been  received  from  the  apostle,  who  is 
now  at  Corinth.  At  the  first  meeting  of  the  little 
church  the  letter  is  read.  It  is  probably  read  again 
at  the  next  meeting.  It  is  talked  over.  The  church 
at  Berea  hears  of  it  and  may  have  borrowed  it  to  read 
at  their  meetings.  Possibly  it  gets  even  to  Philippi. 
After  a  time  the  letter  will  have  had  its  influence  and 
be  laid  aside.    In  time  a  second  letter  comes. 

The  Epistles.  As  the  years  pass  on  one  apostle  and 
then  another  passed  away.    The  little  parchment  rolls, 


248    FOUNDATIONS  OP  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

which  may  have  been  placed  in  the  care  of  some  mem- 
ber of  the  church  for  safe  keeping,  take  on  a  new  value. 
They  are  now  keepsakes  of  the  beloved  apostle  who  is 
no  more.  Again  they  are  brought  out  and  read  and 
reread  at  the  meetings.  But  it  is  to  be  distinctly 
noted  that  they  are  not  read  as  the  Old  Testament  was 
read  in  the  service,  that  is,  as  scripture  having  divine 
authority.  But  now  and  again  in  discussing  matters 
of  Christian  belief  or  practice  the  members  of  the 
churches  would  naturally  get  into  the  habit  of  refer- 
ring to  what  Paul  or  some  other  apostle  had  said  in 
one  of  his  letters.  Soon  copies  of  the  letters  begin  to 
be  made  in  order  that  other  churches  than  those  to 
whom  they  were  first  sent  might  obtain  copies.  Thus 
the  church  at  Philippi  received  a  beautiful  letter  from 
Paul  in  the  year  G3  while  he  was  awaiting  trial  at 
Rome.  After  his  death  (probably  in  G6)  how  glad  the 
Philippian  church  would  be  to  get  copies  of  the  letters 
the  apostle  had  sent  to  the  Thessalonians  ten  or  twelve 
years  before.  And  they  in  turn  would  prize  a  copy  of 
the  letter  the  Philippians  had  received  shortly  before 
the  apostle's  death.  And  so  of  the  other  churches. 
Copies  of  the  apostle's  letters  were  made  and  ex- 
changed among  the  churches,  and  read  and  referred 
to  when  matters  of  Christian  teaching,  belief,  and 
practice  came  up  for  discussion.  And  here  we  find 
the  first  beginnings  of  that  which  came  later,  namely, 
attributing  to  the  apostle's  letters  some  degree  of 
divine  authority. 

The  Gospels.  The  Gospels  came  to  be  written  in  a 
somewhat  different  manner.  Between  thirty  and 
forty  years  after  the  death  of  Jesus  the  apostles  and 
other  prominent  Christians  perceived  the  need  of  com- 


THE  BIBLE  AS  A  RECORD  249 

mitting  to  writing  the  important  facts  of  Jesus's  life 
and  some  record  of  bis  teaching.  During  the  first  few 
years  after  Jesns's  death  the  circle  of  Christians 
included  so  many  of  those  who  had  known  Jesus,  and 
all  the  things  he  had  said  and  done  seemed  so  vivid  in 
memory  that  there  was  no  realization  of  the  need  of 
records.  But  those  who  had  known  Jesus's  life  and 
teaching  personally  and  had  been  eyewitnesses  of  his 
death  and  resurrection  began  to  be  removed  by  death. 
The  story  of  Jesus  had  been  the  powerful  factor  in 
persuading  men  and  women  to  believe  on  him  and 
become  Christians — so  the  story  of  Jesus  must  be  pre- 
served and  not  left  to  the  uncertain  fortunes  which 
would  surely  befall  it  if  it  should  continue  to  be 
passed  on  by  word  of  mouth  after  the  original  wit- 
nesses of  his  life  and  words  were  gone. 

And  so  Christians  here  and  there  began  to  write. 
One  may  have  written  down  a  couple  of  parables  as 
he  remembered  hearing  Jesus  utter  them.  Another 
wrote  the  account  of  one  or  two  miracles  which  had 
wonderfully  impressed  him  and  which  he  could  never 
forget.  Another  may  have  let  his  pen  record  the  story 
of  the  crucifixion  as  he  recalled  it  after  the  lapse  of 
years.  What  would  we  not  give  for  a  few  of  those 
frail  and  fleeting  papyrus  rolls !  That  they  existed 
we  know  from  the  quotations  from  them  made  in  the 
writings  of  some  of  the  Church  Fathers  or  Christian 
writers  of  the  second  and  third  centuries.  But  we 
shall  doubtless  never  recover  any  of  them. 

At  an  early  date,  perhaps  in  the  early  fifties, 
Matthew  the  apostle  wrote  a  larger  work.  It  was  a 
fairly  good  sized  collection  of  the  sayings  of  Jesus — 
a  record  of  some  of  the  more  important  teachings.    He 


250    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

wrote  this  in  his  native  Aramaic — the  current  lan- 
guage of  the  Palestinian  Jews  at  that  time  and  doubt- 
less the  mother  tongue  of  Jesus.  Upon  the  work  as  a 
basis,  the  present  Gospel  of  Matthew  was  prepared  in 
Greek  some  years  later.  And  we  have  not  the  remot- 
est idea  who  it  was  who  wrote  the  Gospel  in  the  form 
in  which  we  now  have  it. 

The  first  attempt  to  write  a  comprehensive  story 
of  Jesus's  deeds  and  words  was  made  somewhere  in 
the  sixties — perhaps  6G  or  68 — by  John  Mark  of  Jeru- 
salem, the  cousin  of  Barnabas  and  the  close  friend  of 
both  Peter  and  Paul.  Luke's  Gospel  describes  its 
origin  in  its  opening  sentences.  It  is  a  careful  com- 
pilation of  the  memories  and  reminiscences  of  several 
persons  who  had  known  Jesus  personally.  The 
author  was  a  physician,  the  friend  and  traveling  com- 
panion of  Paul,  and  he  enjoyed  excellent  opportuni- 
ties of  learning  his  facts  from  early  witnesses.  That 
other  Gospels  were  written  Ave  know,  for  several  are 
referred  to  by  current  writers  whose  works  have  come 
down  to  us.  But  failing  later  to  be  included  in  the 
canon  or  authorized  group  of  writings  they  were 
lost.2 

The  Growth  of  the  New  Testament.  For  fully  a  hundred 
years  after  the  penning  of  the  New  Testament  writ- 
ings there  was  no  New  Testament  as  we  understand 
it,  in  the  sense  of  a  recognized  collection  of  writings 
to  which  divine  authority  was  ascribed.  The  books 
were  current  among  Christians,  as  separate  writings. 
Around  the  beginning  of  the  third  century  (A.  D. 
200)    we  learn  that  Christian  scholars  and  bishops 


2 1  am  indebted  here  to  the  excellent  work  on  The  Canon  and  Text  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, by  Professor  Caspar  Rene  Gregory. 


THE  BIBLE  AS  A  RECORD  251 

were  in  the  habit  of  making  authorized  lists  of  the 
writings  which  should  be  received  as  authentic  and 
read  in  the  churches.  One  such  list  was  prepared  as 
early  as  the  year  170.  Slowly  and  by  the  gradual 
growth  of  a  consensus  of  Christian  opinion,  a  group 
of  authorized  writings  came  to  be  agreed  upon,  and 
gradually  they  began  to  be  regarded  as  having  divine 
authority.  But  this  formation  of  the  canon  of  the 
New  Testament  was  not  the  single  act  of  the  church 
council  or  of  any  other  group  of  Christians,  but  was 
the  result  of  a  slow  process  of  selection  which  went  on 
naturally  for  several  generations  within  the  Christian 
churches.  And  even  after  a  New  Testament  canon 
had  become  recognized  the  collections  of  writings 
varied  to  some  extent,  in  different  parts  of  the  ancient 
Christian  world. 

We  have  dwelt  thus  upon  the  way  the  Bible  came 
into  existence  not  only  because  the  facts  are  impor- 
tant and  of  great  interest  in  themselves,  but  also  be- 
cause of  their  deeper  meaning.  They  show  that  the 
great  facts  of  religious  experience  always  preceded 
the  records.  The  religion  of  Israel  did  not  rest  upon 
the  Old  Testament,  but  upon  a  revelation  of  the  Most 
High  to  that  little  nation  to  which  they  made  response. 
Christianity  is  not  founded  upon  the  New  Testament. 
Christian  faith  had  existed  for  a  century  before  the 
New  Testament  came  into  being.  The  New  Testament 
grew  out  of  the  life  of  the  Christian  Church.  The 
facts  of  revelation — the  experiences — have  always  pre- 
ceded the  records  and  they  alone  are  the  basis  for  the 
authority  of  the  record. 

Meaning  of  Inspiration.  Then  too,  the  way  the  Bible 
came  into  existence  throws  light  upon  the  meaning 


252    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

of  inspiration.  That  the  Bible  is  inspired,  which 
means  that  the  Bible  was  written  by  inspired  men,  is 
a  part  of  the  Christian  faith.  But  what  does  inspira- 
tion mean?  We  have  already  seen  that  it  cannot 
mean  some  sort  of  divine  dictation  which  would  make 
the  Bible  infallible.  Biblical  infallibility  is  a  doc- 
trine which  crept  into  the  church  after  the  Protestant 
Reformation.  The  Bible  itself  nowhere  claims  to  be 
infallible.3  What  inspiration  means  we  may  learn 
not  from  some  theological  doctrine  about  the  Bible, 
but  from  the  Bible  itself.  As  Professor  Bowne  says : 
"The  meaning  and  measure  of  inspiration  cannot  be 
decided  by  abstract  reflection,  but  only  by  a  study  of 
the  outcome.  What  inspiration  is  must  be  learned 
from  what  it  does.  .  .  .  We  must  not  determine 
the  character  of  the  books  from  the  inspiration,  but 
must  rather  determine  the  nature  of  the  inspiration 
from  the  books"  ( Studies  in  Christianity,  p.  30 ) . 

From  the  Bible  itself  we  come  to  believe  that  its 
authors  were  guided  and  inspired  by  God.  Not,  how- 
ever, in  any  manner  which  would  make  them  other 
than  their  natural  selves.  Inspiration  does  not  enable 
a  man  to  find  out  facts  by  any  supernatural  means. 
Luke  in  preparing  his  Gospel  no  doubt  had  to  visit 
the  original  eye-witnesses  from  whom  he  obtained  his 
material.  And  he  was  under  the  same  obligation  to 
exercise  care  and  good  judgment  in  arranging  and 
preparing  the  material  for  writing.  Inspiration 
might  be  characterized  as  the  personal  influence  of 
God  through  which  a  man  receives  deeper  insight  and 
great  enthusiasm  for  his  work.     This  personal  influ- 

*  The  passage  in  2  Tim.  3.  16  is  a  mistranslation  in  our  Authorized  Version,  and  both 
this  passage  and  Rev.  22.  18  and  19  were  written  generations  before  there  was  any  New 
Testament  or  Bible  as  we  have  it. 


THE  BIBLE  AS  A  RECORD  253 

ence  from  the  Divine  Mind  quickens  the  entire  human 
personality.  Through  the  intense  interest  which  is 
thus  produced  in  the  task  in  hand  thought  is  clarified, 
memory  strengthened,  and  feeling  enriched.  To  quote 
from  the  excellent  exposition  of  Dods:  "In  the  ac- 
count given  us  of  creation  inspiration  enabled  the 
writer,  not  to  give  a  description  in  which  thousands 
of  years  afterward  perfect  accuracy  might  be  found, 
but  to  discover  God  in  the  work.  And  throughout  the 
Old  Testament  history  it  is  not  the  material  which 
inspiration  guarantees  but  the  spirit.  .  .  .  Inspira- 
tion enables  its  possessor  to  see  and  apprehend  God 
and  his  will  and  to  impart  to  other  men  what  he  has 
himself  seen  and  apprehended"  (Dods,  The  Bible,  Its 
Origin  and  Nature,  p.  12G). 

The  Progressive  Nature  of  Revelation.  One  lingering 
scruple  may  be  answered.  It  is  often  urged,  if  we 
once  admit  that  the  biblical  writers  could  err,  and 
that  the  sacred  text  contains  the  misconceptions  of 
inspired  men  as  well  as  their  permanent  contributions 
to  mankind's  knowledge  of  God,  how  are  we  to  know 
which  is  revelation  and  which  not?  The  answer  is 
that  when  one  remembers  that  the  underlying  purpose 
of  the  Scriptures  was  spiritual,  there  will  be  no  per- 
plexity. The  Bible  was  never  intended  to  be  author- 
itative on  the  subject  of  science  or  history.  And 
therefore  when  we  meet  the  crude  notions  of  cen- 
turies ago,  or  discover  historical  inaccuracies  in  the 
Bible,  we  need  not  be  disturbed.  And  so  far  as  low 
morals,  ideals,  and  imperfect  religious  conceptions  are 
concerned,  we  have  the  standard  in  the  teaching  and 
example  of  Christ,  who  is  the  highest  manifestation 
of  God.    If,  therefore,  any  conception  of  God  be  found 


254    FOUNDATIONS  OP  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

in  any  part  of  the  Bible  which  is  clearly  out  of  har- 
mony with  Christ's  teaching  about  God,  there  can  be 
no  question  which  we  should  choose.  And  as  for  the 
responsibility  of  choosing  between  that  which  is  lower 
and  that  which  is  highest,  when  were  we  as  moral 
beings  relieved  from  that?  Practically,  there  is  no 
difficulty  when  once  we  give  up  the  false  idea  of  a 
divine  revelation  given  perfect  from  the  start  and  sub- 
stitute the  conception  of  a  gradually  progressing 
knowledge  of  God  in  which  because  of  the  limitations 
of  those  to  whom  the  revelation  was  being  made  it  was 
necessary  that  the  imperfect  should  find  place,  but  in 
which  also  the  imperfect  gradually  gave  place  to  that 
which  is  higher,  and  finally  to  the  complete. 

The  Bible  and  Other  Sacred  Writings.  Before  we  close 
our  discussion  of  the  revelation  of  God,  a  few  words 
must  be  added  concerning  the  Bible  and  the  sacred 
writings  of  other  religions.  The  claim  has  been  made 
that  the  Bible  is  only  one  of  many  sacred  writings, 
and  that  God  has  revealed  himself  to  the  Moham- 
medan and  the  nations  of  the  Far  East  quite  as  dis- 
tinctly in  the  sacred  books  of  their  religions  as  he  had 
revealed  himself  to  Judaism  and  Christianity  in  the 
Bible. 

We  have  already  recognized  that  the  revelation  of 
God  is  not  confined  entirely  to  Judaism  and  Chris- 
tianity. Through  the  great  ethnic  faiths  of  the  Orient 
there  have  shone  rays  of  divine  truth.  But  the  light 
of  truth  as  seen  in  the  religions  of  the  Far  East  is  the 
twilight  of  early  dawn  when  we  compare  those  reli- 
gions with  the  full  noontide  of  Christianity.  Nothing 
could  illustrate  this  better  than  a  comparison  of  the 
Christian  Scriptures  with  the  sacred  writings  of  the 


THE  BIBLE  AS  A  RECORD  255 

Oriental  religions.  It  is  only  in  recent  years  that  we 
have  come  actually  to  know  what  these  sacred  books 
of  the  East  are.  The  Koran  of  Mohammedanism  has 
been  translated  for  many  generations,  but  the  monu- 
mental labors  of  a  group  of  scholars  (foremost  among 
whom  was  the  late  Professor  Max  Muller  of  Oxford) 
have  at  last  opened  up  to  English  readers  the  sacred 
writings  of  the  Oriental  religions. 

In  the  general  preface  with  which  the  whole  series 
opens,  Professor  Max  Muller,  the  editor,  says,  "Read- 
ers who  have  been  led  to  believe  that  the  Vedas  of  the 
ancient  Brahmans,  the  Avesta  of  the  Zoroastrians,  the 
Tripitaka  of  the  Buddhists,  and  the  Kings  of  Con- 
fucius, or  the  Koran  of  Mohammed,  are  books  full  of 
primeval  wisdom  and  religious  enthusiasm,  or  at  least 
of  sound  and  simple  moral  teaching,  will  be  disap- 
pointed on  consulting  these  volumes."  In  another 
place  he  says,  "I  confess  it  has  been  for  many  years  a 
problem  to  me,  aye,  and  to  a  great  extent  is  so  still, 
how  the  sacred  books  of  the  East  should,  by  the  side 
of  so  much  that  is  fresh,  natural,  simple,  beautiful, 
and  true,  contain  so  much  that  is  not  only  unmean- 
ing, artificial,  and  silly,  but  even  hideous  and  repel- 
lent." Again,  speaking  of  the  Brahmanas,  he  says: 
"These  works  deserve  to  be  studied  as  the  physician 
studies  the  twaddle  of  idiots  or  the  ravings  of  mad- 
men. .  .  .  But  let  us  only  try  to  translate  these  works 
into  our  own  language,  and  we  shall  feel  astonished 
that  human  language  and  human  thought  should  ever 
have  been  used  for  such  purposes."  To  all  superficial 
attempts  to  glorify  the  Oriental  religions  and  place 
their  sacred  writings  in  the  same  class  with  the  Bible 
we  need  no  other  answer  than  these  words  from  the 


256    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

great  scholar  who  devoted  his  life  to  opening  up  the 
records  of  Eastern  religion  to  Western  scholarship. 

The  Supremacy  of  the  Bible.  But  we  must  briefly  sug- 
gest some  of  those  particulars  in  which  the  Bible 
towers  above  all  other  sacred  writings.  Any  compar- 
ison of  the  Bible  with  the  sacred  books  of  other  reli- 
gions soon  brings  out  the  fact  that  these  latter  con- 
tain immense  amounts  of  dross  in  comparison  with 
the  gold  of  truth.  The  Bible,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
singularly  free  from  those  low  and  impure  concep- 
tions of  the  Divine  which  can  produce  nothing  but 
a  degraded  moral  life.  The  character  of  any  reli- 
gion is  determined  by  its  fundamental  conception  of 
God.  We  do  not  wonder  that  immoral  conceptions 
of  the  divine  characterize  all  primitive  religions. 
They  are  low  in  the  scale  of  religious  evolution.  The 
loftier  moral  ideals  have  not  yet  emerged.  But  the 
great  religions  of  the  East,  in  spite  of  a  certain  philo- 
sophic dignity  in  their  conceptions,  stand  utterly  con- 
demned by  the  type  of  life  they  have  produced.  And 
their  most  notable  defect  is  in  their  conception  of 
God.  This  is  impersonal  and  highly  abstract,  and 
therefore  fails  to  meet  the  deep  religious  needs  of  men. 
Brahmanism  in  its  later  development  is  rather  a  reli- 
gious philosophy  than  a  religion.  It  never  became  the 
religion  of  the  masses  in  India.  Its  abstract  and 
purely  speculative  ideas  of  the  divine  are  replaced  in 
popular  religious  thought  by  the  hideous  gods  of  the 
Hindu  pantheon  with  all  their  groveling  superstition 
and  idolatry.  The  caste  system,  which  is  socially  the 
essence  of  the  Brahman  faith,  has  held  India  in  its 
frightful  grasp  for  ages,  and  it  is  very  certain  that  no 
social  and  industrial  progress  such  as  has  taken  place 


THE  BIBLE  AS  A  RECORD  257 

in  Japan  and  is  beginning  to  transform  China,  will 
ever  be  possible  in  India  until  the  religious  teachings 
upon  which  the  caste  system  is  founded  are  under- 
mined and  swept  away.  With  all  the  poetic  dignity 
and  spiritual  depth  of  some  of  the  hymns  of  the  Vedas, 
the  fact  remains  that  the  religion  of  India  stands  con- 
demned by  the  type  of  morality  and  social  life  which 
has  developed  under  the  influence  of  its  fundamental 
teachings. 

Nor  is  it  different  with  Buddhism.  Rising  in  India 
as  a  popular  reaction  against  the  heartlessness  and 
austerities  of  the  Brahman  priests,  Buddhism  pro- 
claimed the  principle  of  human  religion  without  a 
God,  until  the  cardinal  defect  was  remedied  by  a  pop- 
ular deification  and  worship  of  Gautama,  its  founder. 
But  in  spite  of  some  features  of  abiding  worth  Bud- 
dhism has  taught  its  vast  numbers  of  adherents  no  doc- 
trine of  a  God  in  sympathy  with  man,  no  freedom 
from  the  guilt  of  sin  through  the  divine  forgiveness, 
no  deep  and  abiding  meaning  in  human  life,  no  com- 
fort for  human  pain  and  heartache,  no  hope  of  a 
larger  and  fuller  life  of  the  spirit  after  the  earthly 
life  is  done.  Indeed,  the  highest  blessing  to  which 
Buddhism  can  lead  the  aspiration  of  its  adherents  is 
that  of  the  extinction  of  one's  personality — absorp- 
tion into  Infinite  Being,  as  the  river  is  merged  in  the 
vast  expanses  of  the  ocean.  The  highest  virtue,  ac- 
cording to  Buddhism,  is  found  in  cultivating  a  sense 
of  the  unreality  and  transitoriness  of  the  world.  If 
one  has  this  well  developed,  then  no  sorrows  or  disap- 
pointments can  bring  deep  pain,  but  a  deliverance 
from  human  woe  comes  by  way  of  this  attitude  of 
insensibility  toward  the  world. 


258  FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

Now,  in  absolute  contrast  with  all  this  we  find  in 
the  Bible  an  elevated  and  noble  conception  of  the 
Divine.  God  is  a  moral  being  of  infinite  holiness. 
And  the  Bible  teaches  that  God  is  full  of  sympathy 
and  compassion,  that  his  relation  to  men  is  that  of  a 
Father  to  children. 

The  writings  of  other  religions  abound  in  childish 
stories  of  the  creation  of  the  world  and  of  men.  The 
mythologies  are  endless  and  grotesque.  But  in  the 
Bible  account  of  creation  a  great  moral  purpose  ap- 
pears at  the  outset;  and  while  the  material  may  be 
that  of  unhistorical  legend  and  tradition,  yet  the  reli- 
gious spirit  and  motive  in  the  narratives  stand  forth 
as  their  most  distinctive  characteristic. 

Unlike  all  other  sacred  writings,  the  Bible  lays  tre- 
mendous emphasis  upon  morality  and  righteousness. 
The  Hebrew  people,  in  all  their  anthropomorphisms, 
never  conceived  their  Divinity  in  the  female  form. 
Their  national  religion  was  therefore  saved  from  that 
practice  of  licentious  impurity  in  the  name  of  reli- 
gion which  was  so  characteristic  of  other  Semitic 
peoples.  Human  sacrifice  also,  so  widely  prevalent 
among  nearly  all  the  tribes  and  nations  of  the  Semitic 
race,  never  existed  as  a  part  of  Hebrew  religion. 

Nowhere  else  in  all  the  realm  of  sacred  literature  do 
we  find  anything  which  begins  to  approach  the  work 
of  the  prophets  of  ancient  Israel.  They  preached  the 
loftiest  conceptions  of  God,  and  under  their  moral 
leadership  the  religion  of  the  nation  advanced  until 
all  the  remnants  of  early  paganism  were  left  behind. 
The  burden  of  their  message  was  the  call  to  righteous- 
ness of  life  and  the  pure  service  of  Jehovah.  The 
later  prophets  even  held  up  before  the  nation  the  ideal 


THE  BIBLE  AS  A  RECORD  259 

of  a  deep  responsibility  devolving  upon  them  to  be- 
come the  spiritual  leaders  and  teachers  of  other 
nations  in  the  ways  of  righteousness  and  the  service 
of  the  only  true  God. 

The  New  Testament  sets  forth  the  great  truth  that 
through  Jesus  Christ  God  has  made  himself  known 
most  directly,  intimately,  and  personally.  This  marks 
the  highest  possible  level  of  the  divine  revelation.  The 
truth  that  God  is  the  Infinite  Father,  and  that  all  men 
are,  therefore,  bound  together  by  the  ties  of  a  spiritual 
brotherhood,  is  the  unspeakably  precious  teaching 
which  the  world  owes  to  Jesus  Christ.  From  the  Bible 
alone  has  come  the  truth  that  men  may  receive  the 
divine  forgiveness  for  their  sin,  not  through  their 
works  of  expiation,  but  as  the  free  gift  of  divine 
mercy.  From  the  Bible  alone  has  come  the  truth 
that  salvation  means  personal  righteousness  and 
social  justice.  From  the  Bible  alone  has  come  our 
faith  in  personal  immortality. 

We  believe  that  a  literature  which  records  the  de- 
velopment of  such  a  type  of  life  as  that  of  the  Hebrew 
people,  and  the  unfolding  of  such  mighty  truths  as 
those  found  in  the  life  and  teaching  of  Christ,  is  veri- 
tably a  record  of  the  divine  revelation.  We  would  not 
say  that  the  only  revelation  of  God's  nature  and  pur- 
pose is  to  be  found  in  the  Bible.  But  we  may  confi- 
dently affirm  that  the  divine  revelation  contained  in 
the  Bible,  compared  with  that  in  nature  and  in  the 
ethnic  religions,  is  as  the  noontide  compared  with  the 
dim  light  of  dawn. 

Redemption  the  Great  Purpose  of  the  Christian  Revelation. 
Before  we  leave  our  consideration  of  the  Bible  as  the 
record  of  the  Christian  revelation  we  must  note  the 


260  FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

great  underlying  purpose  of  God  in  making  the  revela- 
tion. In  the  Scriptures  we  read  not  only  of  God  mak- 
ing himself  known  but  of  God  giving  himself  in  sacri- 
fice. The  greatest  word  of  Christianity  is  therefore 
not  revelation  but  salvation  or  redemption.  The  ex- 
position of  this  great  truth  of  redemption  through 
divine  love  belongs  properly  to  theology.  We  simply 
refer  to  it  here.  But  no  one  can  gain  an  adequate 
conception  of  the  range  and  purpose  of  the  Christian 
revelation  without  recognizing  this  truth  that  "God 
was  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto  himself." 

To  sum  up:  We  find  in  the  Bible  the  record  of  a 
gradually  developing  revelation  of  God.  It  is  pro- 
gressive because  on  the  divine  side  God  necessarily 
adapted  the  revelation  to  the  mental  and  spiritual 
capacities  of  those  to  whom  it  was  made.  On  the 
human  side  the  Bible  records  the  growth  of  man's 
consciousness  of  God.  The  recognition  of  this  truth 
leads  us  to  expect  crude  ideas  of  God  and  low  stand- 
ards of  morality  in  the  earlier  stages  of  human  cul- 
ture. According  to  this  view  we  see  that  divine  in- 
spiration does  not  necessarily  mean  any  kind  of  infal- 
libility. The  men  who  wrote  the  Bible  were  men  of 
spiritual  perceptions  whom  the  direct  influence  of 
God  lifted  far  above  the  ordinary  current  religious 
thought  of  their  time.  It  may  be  noted  in  passing 
that  this  viewpoint  of  modern  biblical  scholarship 
takes  the  meaning  out  of  the  many  objections  which 
used  to  be  urged  against  the  Bible  by  skepticism.  To 
condemn  the  imperfect  morality  and  crude  religious 
ideas  of  an  early  age  had  point  only  as  long  as  the 
Bible  was  held  up  as  infallible.  The  truth  of  the  pro- 
gressive   nature    of    biblical    revelation    completely 


THE  BIBLE  AS  A  RECORD  261 

vacates  these  old  perplexities.  This  view  also  opens 
our  eyes  to  the  greatness  of  the  revelation.  Rescuing 
the  Bible  from  the  indefensible  position  in  which 
dogmatic  theology  had  placed  it,  we  have  the  chance 
really  to  see  the  spiritual  grandeur  and  power  of  this 
wonderful  Book.    It  is  verily  the  "Word  of  God." 

Through  the  Bible  messages  we  see  how  God  has 
been  in  the  great  currents  of  human  history  and  in 
the  dawn  and  deepening  of  the  religious  conscious- 
ness; through  the  Bible  messages  we  learn  of  the 
infinite  love  of  God  as  revealed  in  Jesus  Christ,  and 
how  deep-souled  men  have  experienced  God's  forgive- 
ness and  have  had  conscious  fellowship  with  him. 
And  thus  the  Bible  is  not  only  the  source  of  our 
knowledge  of  God  and  the  witness  to  the  reality  of 
spiritual  experiences  in  former  generations,  but  it 
becomes  the  means  through  which  men  of  every  gen- 
eration may  know  God  and  themselves  experience  the 
facts  of  the  inner  life.  To  those  who  through  faith 
make  the  great  spiritual  truths  taught  in  the  Bible 
their  own,  it  becomes  indeed  the  very  "Word  of  God" 
— the  great  source  of  spiritual  life. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE  PLACE  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL  IN  THE 
CHRISTIAN  REVELATION 

We  have  now  gained  some  conception  of  the  nature 
and  extent  of  the  divine  revelation.  The  Bible  is  full 
of  interest  as  ancient  literature — as  a  record  of  the 
thought  and  life  of  a  most  remarkable  people  of  an- 
tiquity. But  when  it  is  perceived  that  in  the  moral  and 
religious  development  of  that  people  God  has  made 
himself  known  and  revealed  his  purposes  with  a  clear- 
ness nowhere  else  discerned,  then  the  Bible  becomes 
profoundly  significant  as  a  record  of  the  divine  revela- 
tion. In  the  Bible  we  find  from  time  to  time  accounts 
of  marvelous  events.  These  are  the  biblical  miracles. 
They  are  recorded  as  special  manifestations  of  divine 
power.  We  must  face  the  question  of  miracle  and 
ask  whether  from  the  point  of  view  of  sound  religious 
philosophy  supernatural  events  may  be  regarded  as 
an  essential  part  of  the  divine  revelation. 

In  beginning  the  discussion  of  this  great  question 
which  has  been  such  a  storm-center  we  cannot  make 
our  start  simply  from  the  biblical  miracles  themselves, 
affirming  that  they  are  in  the  inspired  scriptural 
records  and  therefore  must  be  received  for  that  reason 
as  authentic  and  authoritative.  That  may  be  the  be- 
lief of  many ;  and  it  has  often  been  the  standpoint  of 
dogmatic  theology,  but  it  is  not  the  method  of  philos- 
ophy.   It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  sacred  liter- 

262 


PLACE  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL       263 

atures  of  other  religions  also  contain  many  accounts 
of  miracles  of  various  sorts.  Attempts  have  been 
made  to  show  that  the  miracles  recorded  in  the  Bible 
are  in  a  class  by  themselves  and  quite  different  from 
the  miracles  of  other  religions,  and  also  from  those 
marvels  alleged  of  the  saints  by  mediaeval  superstition. 
But  the  attempt  is  not  successful.  For  while  many 
of  the  biblical  miracles  are  full  of  moral  dignity  and 
spring  from  a  deep  religious  insight  and  a  clear  recog- 
nition of  the  power  and  purpose  of  God  in  unusual 
events,  others  are  such  as  modern  thinking  would 
explain  without  any  supernatural  reference,  while 
still  others  savor  of  crude  magical  ideas.1 

Origin  of  Belief  in  the  Supernatural  in  Early  Reli- 
gion. The  conception  of  the  supernatural  begins  on 
the  low  plane  of  animism  and  spiritism.  Divination 
is  found  to  be  a  feature  of  all  early  religion  and  the 
essential  thing  about  divination  is  the  effort  to  know 
the  will  of  the  Deity  from  an  interpretation  of  un- 
usual events.  From  the  point  of  view  of  the  origin  of 
the  supernatural,  events  fall  into  two  classes:  first, 
the  frequent  and  familiar,  and,  second,  the  infrequent 
and  striking  events.  And  it  is  characteristic  of  all 
primitive  thinking  to  ascribe  the  infrequent  and 
extraordinary  events  (such  as  disastrous  storm, 
famine,  sickness,  etc. )  directly  to  the  agency  of  super- 
human powers.  The  belief  in  the  supernatural  first 
arose,  therefore,  as  the  result  of  the  early  crude 
attempts  of  primitive  thought  to  account  for  extraor- 
dinary events. 

1  Such  are  the  stories  of  Aaron's  rod  which  budded  and  turned  into  a  serpent,  etc. 
Such  also  are  some  of  the  Samson  and  Elisha  stories,  notably  those  of  the  she  bears 
which  devoured  the  children  who  mocked  the  prophet  (2  Kings  2.  23-25)  and  of  the 
dead  man  who  was  brought  back  to  life  by  being  lowered  into  the  grave  so  that  he 
came  into  contact  with  the  prophet's  bones  (2  Kings  13.  21). 


2te    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

The  Problem.  It  is  not  our  problem  to  seek  to  vindi- 
cate as  historical  every  marvelous  tale  found  in  those 
ancient  records  which  comprise  the  Bible.  It  will  be, 
rather,  our  attempt  to  point  out  those  great  truths  a 
consideration  of  which  in  their  relation  to  each  other 
will  give  substantial  ground  for  the  belief  that  there 
has  been  and  is  what  we  may  call  a  supernatural 
element  in  the  Christian  revelation,  and  that  this 
supernatural  element  is  an  essential  part  of  the  his- 
toric revelation  and  has  served  a  most  important  pur- 
pose in  it. 

Modern  Tendency  to  Depreciate  Importance  of  Miracle. 
There  is  no  denying  the  fact  that  there  is  a  pro- 
nounced tendency  on  the  part  of  some  strong  thinkers 
to  minimize  the  importance  of  miracle  and  even  to 
wish  to  eliminate  it  altogether  from  essential  Chris- 
tian belief.  Long  ago  Matthew  Arnold  wrote :  "There 
is  nothing  one  would  more  desire  for  a  person  or  a 
document  one  greatly  values  than  to  make  them  inde- 
pendent of  miracles."2  Wendt  (System  der  Christ- 
lichen  Lehre)  and  Harnack  (Das  Wesen  des  Christen- 
thums)  both  decide  that  Christianity  makes  a 
stronger  appeal  by  abandoning  dependence  upon  the 
supernatural  altogether.  So  also  does  Hastings  Rash- 
dall,  who  is  one  of  the  strongest  exponents  of  theism. 
Dr.  Rashdall  writes:  "We  may  be  quite  confident 
that  for  minds  which  have  once  appreciated  the  prin- 
ciples of  historical  criticism,  or  minds  affected  by  the 
suffused  skepticism  which  has  sprung  from  historical 
criticism,  neither  religious  faith  in  general  nor  any 
doctrine  of  primary  religious  importance  will  ever 
depend  mainly  upon  the  evidence  of  abnormal  events 


2  Literature  and  Dogma,  p.  137. 


PLACE  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL       265 

recorded  to  have  happened  in  the  remote  past."  3  This 
drift,  to  make  the  supernatural  unimportant  or  to 
exclude  it  from  what  is  absolutely  essential  in  Chris- 
tian faith  is  fairly  strong  to-day  among  many  of  the 
more  liberal  thinkers.  And  it  is  being  advocated  not 
by  the  enemies  of  Christianity  but  by  its  avowed 
friends.  They  do  not  deny  the  possibility  of  miracles 
outright  after  the  fashion  of  Hume  and  Renan.  Most 
of  them  say,  however,  that  even  though  miracles  may 
be  regarded  as  not  impossible,  yet  belief  in  them  ought 
not  to  be  demanded  as  an  indispensable  element  in  the 
Christianity  of  to-day.  Indeed,  miracles,  we  are  told, 
are  now  to  be  regarded  rather  in  the  light  of  an  embar- 
rassment than  an  aid  to  faith. 

Value  of  Miracle  for  Christian  Faith.  But  this  wish  to 
eliminate  the  supernatural  element  and  to  regard  it 
as  an  embarrassment  is  a  grave  mistake.  In  answer 
to  the  question  whether  the  supernatural  is  still  de- 
fensible by  the  best  thinking  in  philosophy  of  reli- 
gion, I  would  make  an  emphatic  answer  in  the  affirm- 
ative. It  is  the  purpose  of  this  chapter  to  point  out 
those  lines  of  reasoning  along  which  lie  the  best,  and, 
indeed,  the  only  defenses  of  the  supernatural  as  an 
essential  element  in  the  historic  revelation  of  God  in 
Christianity.  But  we  ought  to  make  an  important 
distinction.  Strictly  speaking,  belief  in  miracle  is 
not  an  end  in  itself.  The  miracle  was  regarded  as  a 
sign  that  divine  power  was  being  manifested  in  some 
unusual  force  or  through  a  human  agency.  This  con- 
ception of  the  miracle  as  a  token  of  divine  presence 
and  power  prevails  in  the  New  Testament.  The  word 
most  often  used  in  the  Gospels  is  "sign"  (orj^lov) .    The 


•  Contentio  Veritatis,  p.  58. 


266    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

important  matter,  after  all,  is  not  belief  in  miracles 
in  themselves,  but  belief  in  the  Divine  Nature  and 
authority  of  Him  of  whom  they  were  the  testimonials. 
Belief  in  Christ  is  the  essential  thing,  and  the  super- 
natural element  in  the  Gospels  is  important  in  pro- 
portion as  it  leads  to  faith  in  him  as  the  Divine  Son  of 
God.  The  miracles  were  necessary  to  accredit  Jesus 
as  divine  to  an  age  which  believed  that  the  extraor- 
dinary and  the  supernatural  were  unmistakable  evi- 
dence of  the  Divine.  This  is  the  reason  why  a  weak- 
ening of  belief  in  the  reality  of  miracles  is  so  generally 
followed  by  a  weakening  of  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  as 
divine.  Dr.  George  A.  Gordon  says  that  miracles  have 
gradually  ceased  to  be  significant  for  him.  He  is 
"dealing  with  the  Eternal  as  it  shines  by  its  own  light, 
and  so  outward  witness  of  any  kind  for  the  things  of 
the  soul  becomes  superfluous."  4  We  may  acknowl- 
edge the  truth  of  this,  and  yet  we  must  recognize  that 
for  most  men  a  weakening  of  belief  in  the  reality  of 
miracle  as  an  essential  element  in  the  historic  revela- 
tion means  a  distinct  loss  "for  the  things  of  the  soul." 
That  elevation  of  soul-vision  and  directness  of  spirit- 
ual insight  which  Gordon  says  he  has  reached,  and 
which  no  longer  needs  the  "outward  witness  of  any 
kind,"  would  never  have  been  possible  even  to  him 
without  a  belief  in  miracles  as  an  aid  to  growing 
faith  in  the  Divine.  Robert  Browning,  in  that  great 
poem  "A  Death  in  the  Desert,"  compares  the  miracles 
to  the  dry  twigs  stuck  around  to  protect  the  ground 
in  which  seeds  lie,  but  which,  when  the  seeds  have 
sprouted  and  grown  to  be  strong  plants,  are  no  longer 
needed.      The   figure   is   suggestive   and   very    true. 

4  In  Religion  and  Miracle,  the  Preface, 


PLACE  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL       267 

Surely,  without  belief  in  the  supernatural  power  of 
Jesus  Christ  no  strong  and  enduring  faith  in  his 
divine  nature  and  authority  could  ever  have  grown  in 
the  life  of  his  followers.  But  we  must  turn  to  the 
argument  in  which  we  hope  to  show  that  belief  in  the 
supernatural  is  rationally  grounded  and  an  essential 
part  of  the  Christian  revelation. 

Meaning  of  "Supernatural"  and  "Miracle."  The  first 
thing  to  do  is  to  seek  a  clear  conception  of  what  we 
should  mean  by  "supernatural."  What  is  a  miracle? 
Some  persons  will  feel  like  suggesting  that  we  had 
better  begin  our  discussion  by  carefully  focusing  the 
meaning  of  the  term  "supernatural"  until  it  stands 
out  clear  and  well  defined.  But  alas  for  this  attempt 
at  exact  definition  of  terms  that  it  is  so  often  merely 
verbal  performance  and  lends  no  insight!  Instead 
of  carefully  constructing  a  definition  of  a  miracle  let 
us  try  to  get  at  the  thought  value  of  the  idea  or  con- 
cept of  which  the  word  "supernatural"  is  but  the 
name  or  symbol. 

It  is  plain  that  "supernatural"  ought  to  mean  above 
or  beyond  the  natural.  This  is  merely  etymology. 
We  are  therefore  thrown  back  upon  the  word  "nat- 
ural." What  is  a  "natural"  event?  Is  it  "natural"  to 
talk  with  a  person  a  hundred  miles  away  with  no 
connecting  wire  or  other  visible  means  of  commu- 
nication? Yes,  wonderful  as  it  is,  it  is  quite  natural, 
for  the  wireless  telephone  is  a  fact.  But  if  this  event 
had  happened  a  generation  ago,  would  it  then  have 
been  classed  as  "natural"  or  "supernatural"?  Is  it 
natural  to  alleviate  and  cure  certain  nervous  and 
functional  disorders  by  the  presence  and  word  of  a 
commanding  personality?    This  is  being  done  to-day, 


268    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

and  the  therapeutic  value  of  mental  suggestion  is 
fully  recognized  by  men  of  science.  But  how  would 
such  facts  as  those  now  seen  in  the  clinics  of  the  psy- 
cho-therapists have  been  classified  a  hundred  years 
ago,  as  natural  or  supernatural?  Bernheiin,  of 
Nancy,  and  those  experimenters  who  have  followed 
him  have  discovered  for  us  some  forces  of  which  we 
had  been  in  ignorance  and  the  laws  of  these  forces 
have  been  set  forth.  And  to-day  we  call  these  wonder- 
ful achievements  "natural."  And  why?  Simply  be- 
cause they  are  more  or  less  familiar.  They  are  events 
similar  to  others  which  have  already  come  within  the 
limits  of  our  knowledge,  the  laws  of  which  we  may 
partly  understand.  Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  "na- 
tural" and  "supernatural"  are  terms  entirely  relative 
to  the  limits  of  human  knowledge  at  a  particular  time, 
and  what  would  be  classed  by  one  age  as  a  super- 
natural event  may  come  to  be  called  natural  later  on. 
Shall  we  say,  then,  that  a  natural  event  is  one  which 
we  are  able  to  refer  to  forces  and  laws  with  which  we 
are  more  or  less  familiar?  A  supernatural  event,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  one  which  we  are  not  able  to  refer 
to  forces  or  laws  which  are  known  to  us.  Let  us  not 
for  a  moment  fancy  that  a  natural  event  is  one  whose 
causes  we  fully  understand.  Who  can  really  under- 
stand the  growth  of  a  blade  of  grass,  or  the  beginning 
of  a  human  life?  And  yet  because  we  can  trace  these 
events  in  the  world  of  nature,  and  because  they  are  so 
familiar  to  us,  we  call  them  natural.  The  common- 
est natural  events,  however,  constantly  bring  us  face 
to  face  with  mysteries  which  baffle  our  keenest  specu- 
lations. 


PLACE  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL       269 

Thanks  to  the  human  heart  by  which  we  live, 
Thanks  to  its  tenderness,  its  joys  and  fears, 

To  me,  the  meanest  flower  that  blows,  can  give 
Thoughts  that  do  often  lie  too  deep  for  tears. 

— Wordsworth,  "Intimations  of  Immortality." 

Now,  as  our  knowledge  of  the  world  and  its  forces 
expands,  the  word  "natural"  will  be  applied  to  an 
increasing  number  of  events.  It  is  therefore  only  to 
be  expected  that  supernatural  events  should  be  more 
abundant  in  ages  and  among  peoples  who  have  gained 
no  systematic  knowledge  of  nature  and  her  laws.  As 
the  realm  of  the  known  expands,  the  events  which  are 
considered  supernatural  become  fewer.  The  history 
of  belief  in  miracles  shows  this  to  have  been  the  case. 

The  question  now  arises  whether  the  time  may  not 
have  come  when,  because  of  immense  gains  in  our 
knowledge  of  the  world  and  its  forces,  the  belief  in 
the  supernatural  may  have  ceased  to  fit  our  modern 
ways  of  thinking;  when,  in  other  words,  the  territory 
of  knowledge  may  not  have  become  so  large  that  the 
realm  which  men  have  called  the  supernatural  may 
not  have  narrowed  down  to  very  small  dimensions. 
The  present  scientific  conception  of  nature  as  a  great 
orderly  system  with  its  laws  which  express  not  occa- 
sional but  constant  and  regular  sequences  seems  at 
first  sight  to  preclude  the  idea  that  miracles  may 
happen  to-day.  But  if  we  think  of  a  supernatural 
event  as  an  occurrence  whose  explanation  we  cannot 
refer  to  any  laAv  of  the  universe  with  which  we  are 
familiar,  surely  we  are  by  no  means  in  the  position 
to  say  that  such  an  event  may  not  occur  to-day.  To 
do  so  would  imply  that  we  not  only  know  many  of  the 
forces  of  the  universe,  but  all  of  them.    And  no  one, 


270    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

however  thoroughly  imbued  with  the  scientific  spirit, 
would  have  the  hardihood  to  affirm  this.  Things  may 
happen  to-day  which  we  are  not  able  to  refer  for 
explanation  to  natural  sequences  with  which  we  are 
familiar.  Yet  we  would  remain  convinced  that  if  such 
an  event  does  occur,  it  is  not  isolated  or  unrelated  in 
the  universe.  No  event  can  be.  We  should  believe 
that  the  mystery  and  wonder  of  it  lay  only  in  the  fact 
that  it  obeyed  some  law  which  we  had  not  yet  come 
to  know.  The  conception  of  supernatural  as  meaning- 
only  an  event  the  cause  of  which  lies  beyond  the 
realms  of  truth  already  known,  makes  it  perfectly  cor- 
rect to  say  that  such  a  supernatural  event  might 
happen  to-day.  We  are  untrue  to  the  scientific  spirit 
if  we  waste  any  breath  setting  forth  what  is  possible 
and  impossible.  Scientific  men  have  often  declared 
things  impossible  which  later  took  place.  The  only 
way  to  find  out  what  can  happen  is  to  find  out  what 
really  does  happen. 

But  the  scientist  to-day  has  no  right  to  deny  the 
possibility  of  inexplicable  events,  and  will  not  do  so 
when  he  understands  himself.  He  must  seek  to  verify 
or  to  disprove  these  events.  If  they  are  verified  as 
facts,  then  he  seeks  to  find  other  similar  facts.  These 
are  compared  and  classified  together,  after  which  a 
generalization  is  possible  stating  that  under  certain 
conditions  these  facts  always  happen  as  noted.  A 
name  is  given  to  this  generalization  and  it  is  hence- 
forth called  a  "law."  It  is  to  be  noted  that  the  ex- 
planation of  new  or  unfamiliar  events  here  consists 
in  finding  other  similar  instances  and  classifying 
them  with  facts  already  known.  The  mind  is  thus 
saved  from  thinking  of  the  new  event  as  isolated  or 


PLACE  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL       271 

unrelated  to  truth  already  known.  This  is  all  that 
scientific  explanation  ordinarily  means.  The  bearing 
of  this  upon  our  discussion  is  plain.  It  means  that 
modern  scientific  thought  can  find  no  place  for  the 
supernatural  in  the  sense  of  an  isolated  event,  unre- 
lated to  other  events  like  it.  And  the  theologian  or 
Christian  philosopher  should  hasten  to  make  the  same 
affirmation.  A  modern  philosophy  of  Christianity 
finds  no  place  for  miracles  as  events  unrelated  to  the 
great  laws  of  the  universe.  The  human  reason  de- 
mands that  every  event  which  we  receive  as  fact  must 
find  some  place  in  the  rational  harmony  of  all  things. 
Our  problem,  therefore,  is  how  to  find  a  rational  place 
for  the  miracle  in  our  thinking.  For  an  unrelated 
thing  is  an  irrational  conception,  and  no  irrational 
conception  can  long  maintain  its  place  in  enlightened 
belief.  In  what  way  then  can  we  relate  the  miracle  to 
the  rest  of  our  thinking?  That  is  the  crucial  ques- 
tion. 

Divine  Purpose  in  a  Moral  World  Order.  We  have 
agreed  that  a  supernatural  event  is  one  which  we  can- 
not refer  to  some  known  law  of  the  universe.  But  we 
must  now  take  the  next  step  and  affirm  that  a  mir- 
acle is  more  than  this.  It  is  an  event  in  which  it  is 
possible  to  discern  a  plan  or  purpose  of  God.  Some 
biblical  miracles  were  events  which,  if  they  had  hap- 
pened to-day,  might  not  be  classed  as  supernatural. 
But  a  great  many  of  them  we  would  be  almost  as  much 
at  loss  to  explain  on  natural  grounds  as  when  they 
took  place.  We  learn  from  theism  to  recognize  all  the 
ongoing  processes  of  nature  as  expressions  of  the 
divine  activity.  Philosophy  no  less  than  theology  for- 
bids us  to  think  of  nature  as  independent  of  God.    Its 


272    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

laws  are  his  laws,  for  nature  is  the  constant  expres- 
sion of  the  wisdom  and  power  of  the  Eternal.  This 
we  have  seen  in  our  study  of  that  way  of  conceiving 
of  the  divine  activity  known  as  immanence.  Like  all 
natural  events,  the  miracle  is  an  act  of  God,  but  the 
miracle  must  be  regarded  as  an  act  of  God  in  which 
some  particular  purpose  of  his  is  made  known  in  a 
fashion  different  from  the  way  God's  wisdom  and  will 
may  be  read  in  familiar  events.  Thus  it  will  be  seen 
that  belief  in  miracle  is  fundamentally  a  religious 
matter.  No  one  whose  view  of  the  world  is  essentially 
material  can  find  any  place  in  his  thinking  for  the 
supernatural.  The  justification  of  the  supernatural 
has  been  modified  in  recent  years  by  the  emphasis 
placed  upon  moral  values  in  modern  philosophical 
thinking.  The  old  dogmatic  defenses  on  the  ground 
of  the  authority  of  Scripture  or  the  theological  attri- 
bute of  divine  omnipotence  are  gone.  It  no  longer 
satisfies  us  in  seeking  to  justify  miracle  to  say  that 
"God  can  do  anything."  We  must  now  seek  a  justi- 
fication of  the  supernatural  as  the  necessary  adapta- 
tion of  God's  method  of  revelation  to  those  to  whom 
the  revelation  was  being  made. 

Two  great  foundation  truths  must,*  therefore, 
underlie  all  modern  philosophical  justification  of  the 
supernatural — first,  the  conception  of  God  as  per- 
sonal, involving  as  that  does  his  moral  purposes  for 
the  training  and  saving  of  men,  and,  second,  the  self- 
revelation  of  this  personal  God  in  history.  These  are 
essentially  religious  truths.  They  are  not  capable  of 
formal  demonstration,  but  come  as  great  resultants  in 
thought,  after  we  have  found  that  all  other  concep- 
tions of  the  Divine  give  no  foundation  for  the  ethical 


PLACE  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL       273 

life  and  for  the  practical  religious  needs  of  men. 
Without  these  truths  a  modern  thinker  will  find  the 
acceptance  of  a  supernatural  element  in  Christianity 
exceedingly  difficult  on  any  other  ground  than  that  of 
external  authority,  for  the  great  significance  of  the 
miracle  lies  in  its  being  a  sign  or  manifestation  of 
Divine  purpose  in  events  of  an  unusual  or  extraor- 
dinary character. 

We  repeat,  then,  that  the  great  meaning  to  be  at- 
tached to  the  miracle  is  religious.  To  discuss  the 
possibility  of  a  supernatural  event  on  purely  physical 
or  material  grounds  is  to  come  speedily  to  the  conclu- 
sion which  many  scientists  have  held — that  such  an 
event  is  incredible.  The  scientific  thinker  can  allow 
no  "breaks"  in  the  continuity  of  law,  for  such  breaks 
would  be  to  allow  what  Huxley  calls  "isolated  won- 
ders" out  of  harmonious  relation  with  the  body  of 
truth  already  gained.  The  modern  thinker  who  under- 
stands himself  will  hasten  to  acknowledge  that  phys- 
ical science  can  find  no  place  for  the  supernatural. 
This  is  only  as  it  should  be,  for  the  function  of  phys- 
ical science  is  to  deal  with  causal  connection  on  its 
mechanical  side.  But  this  thinker  should  also  hasten 
to  add  the  important  truth  that  physical  science  is  not 
to  be  thought  of  for  a  moment  as  grasping  and  pre- 
senting all  there  is  of  reality. 

God  as  Personal  Implies  His  Moral  Purposes.  It  is  here 
that  the  modern  view  of  personality  as  the  ultimate 
reality  points  the  way  to  a  rational  justification  of 
the  supernatural.  The  philosophy  of  idealism  has 
fully  demonstrated  the  failure  of  all  mechanical 
theories  of  causation,  and  personalism  has  abun- 
dantly justified  purpose  as  the  only  conception  of 


274    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

cause  in  which  the  mind  can  rest;  and  purpose  means 
a  moral  order  with  great  ends  to  be  served.  Personal 
relationships  are  the  soul  of  a  universe  which  is 
thought  of  as  having  any  moral  meaning.  Thus  it 
appears  that  the  doctrine  of  divine  immanence  de- 
mands that  we  think  of  God  not  only  as  working  out 
his  purposes  in  the  world  of  nature  with  its  myriad 
forces  and  ongoing  processes,  but  also  as  realizing 
his  will  in  the  world  of  moral  persons.  The  doctrine 
of  the  immanence  of  God  is  by  no  means  complete 
when  we  conceive  the  natural  world  alone  as  mani- 
festing the  divine  will.  Just  as  our  highest  plans  and 
best  purposes  are  expressed  not  in  what  wTe  do  with 
material  things  about  us,  but  in  our  personal  relation- 
ships with  friends  and  neighbors,  so  if  we  are  true  to 
the  personal  conception  of  God,  we  must  think  of  him 
as  making  the  most  complete  revelation  of  his  pur- 
pose in  his  relation  not  to  things  but  to  persons. 
Hence  the  moral  becomes  the  highest  realm  in  which 
we  may  look  for  the  self-disclosures  of  the  Divine 
One.  And  if  God  is  to  be  thought  of  as  related  to 
persons,  then  it  follows  that  the  relationship  will  be 
closer  in  the  case  of  some  persons  than  in  the  case  of 
others,  for  this  personal  relation  is  a  mutual  matter, 
calling  for  recognition  and  response  as  well  as  revela- 
tion. And  it  will  be  closer  at  one  time  than  it  is  at 
another  even  to  the  same  person.  Lotze,  in  his  Philos- 
ophy of  Religion,  has  well  expressed  this  great  truth 
of  the  different  degrees  of  nearness  in  the  personal 
relationship  between  God  and  men.  He  says,  "There 
is  nothing  whatever  that  stands  in  opposition  to  the 
further  conviction  that  God,  at  particular  moments 
and  in  particular  persons,  may  have  stood  nearer  to 


PLACE  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL       275 

humanity,  or  may  have  revealed  himself  at  such 
moments  and  in  such  persons  in  a  more  eminent  way 
than  at  other  moments  and  in  other  persons." 

When,  therefore,  a  strange  or  unfamiliar  event  is 
well  attested,  it  must  be  thought  of,  if  possible,  as 
having  a  harmonious  relation  with  the  larger  moral 
order.  In  other  words  its  acceptance  as  a  fact  may 
rest  upon  the  perception  that  it  has  a  moral  meaning 
and  expresses  purpose.  In  the  absence  of  such  percep- 
tion of  a  moral  meaning  the  event  will  be  sufficiently 
accredited  to  find  a  place  in  enlightened  belief.  A 
miracle,  then,  must  have  an  adequate  ethical  occa- 
sion and  a  moral  significance.  We  cannot  accept 
it  simply  as  a  wonder,  contenting  ourselves  with 
the  affirmation  that  an  omnipotent  God  can  "do 
anything,"  and,  therefore,  he  can  perform  this  or 
that  particular  marvel.  The  protest  against  breaks 
or  "isolated  wonders,"  which  has  been  so  often 
urged  by  the  scientist  as  an  argument  against  mir- 
acle, is  sustained.  In  philosophy  of  religion  no 
less  than  in  scientific  thinking  we  must  insist  upon 
continuity,  but  the  main  matter  is  to  be  able  to  per- 
ceive that  it  is  the  larger  continuity  of  moral  pur- 
pose. A  personal  God  must  be  thought  of  as  con- 
cerned not  only  with  running  the  universe  on  schedule 
time,  but  with  those  great  moral  aims  which  look  to 
the  advancement  of  men  in  the  things  of  the  spirit. 

Divine  Purpose  Realized  in  the  Historic  Christian  Revela- 
tion through  Miracle.  Here,  then,  is  firm  ground  for  the 
belief  that  there  have  been  occasions  in  the  revelation 
of  the  personal  God  to  men  when,  in  order  that  the 
moral  purposes  might  remain  continuous,  God  needed 
to  manifest  his  power  in  ways  that  to  us  were  un- 


276    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

familiar  and  extraordinary.  Let  the  supreme  miracle 
of  Christianity  be  our  illustration,  for  in  this  discus- 
sion concerning  the  admissibility  of  a  supernatural 
element  in  the  divine  revelation  we  shall  be  driven  to 
the  tomb  of  Jesus  Christ  ultimately,  and  we  might  as 
well  go  there  at  once.  We  may  well  think  God's  pur- 
poses are  best  served  by  having  death  constitute  such 
a  final  end  of  our  present  existence  that  no  return  of 
those  who  have  gone  beyond  the  shadows  takes  place. 
But  at  a  critical  time  in  the  historic  revelation  called 
Christianity  we  are  assured  on  excellent  historical 
testimony  that  God  did  permit  certain  men  and 
women  to  see  their  Master,  Jesus  Christ,  after  he  had 
gone  beyoud  the  veil  of  death.  This  was  indeed  an 
extraordinary  event — a  miracle. 

Standing  now  on  the  vantage  ground  of  the  cen- 
turies, it  is  not  difficult  for  us  to  see  how  absolutely 
necessary  it  was  for  the  continuance  of  the  revelation 
of  God  through  Jesus  Christ  that  those  first  followers 
should  have  become  perfectly  certain  that  their  Lord 
was  alive  and  not  dead.  Had  not  the  unshakable  con- 
viction been  borne  into  the  souls  of  those  early  dis- 
ciples that  Jesus  Christ  their  Lord  was  alive  again, 
Christianity  would  not  have  survived  its  birth.  The 
"Easter  Message,"  to  use  Harnack's  famous  phrase, 
gave  them  the  "Easter  faith,"  and  it  has  never  yet 
been  shown  how  they  could  have  come  into  the  firm 
and  joyous  possession  of  the  Easter  faith  without  the 
empty  tomb  and  the  appearances. 

From  one  point  of  view  the  miracle  of  Joseph's 
garden  was  a  gracious  condescension  of  the  Divine  to 
human  limitations.  And  this  is  what  every  miracle 
is.    Those  early  followers  of  Christ  were  not  critical 


PLACE  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL       277 

thinkers.  They  could  not  think  of  him  separate  from 
the  well-known  face  and  form.  Face,  form,  voice — ■ 
the  print  of  the  nail  even — were  necessary  accompani- 
ments to  the  realization  of  his  personal  presence.  The 
meaning  of  the  resurrection  did  not  lie  in  the  reviving 
of  a  dead  body,  but  in  the  continuation  of  the  personal 
life  of  Jesus.  Of  course  he  was  far  more  than  the 
flesh  and  bone  of  his  familiar  figure.  We  find  our- 
selves groping  as  soon  as  we  seek  to  establish  the  iden- 
tity of  his  body  after  the  resurrection  with  that  body 
which  he  had  before  his  death.  How  a  material  thing 
may  change  its  attributes  and  characteristics  and  yet 
remain  the  same  thing  is  an  exceedingly  dark  problem. 
We  can  gain  no  assurances  as  long  as  we  remain  on 
the  plane  of  the  physical  and  inquire  about  the  body. 
But  we  reach  firmer  ground  and  clearer  insight  when 
we  come  to  the  personal  traits  of  Jesus  himself.  How- 
ever much  his  body  was  changed,  he  was  not.  His  per- 
sonal interests  do  not  seem  to  have  been  altered.  His 
mental  traits,  his  affections — all  that  made  him  truly 
what  he  was  to  the  disciples — were  not  changed  by 
death.  Here  is  the  great  and  significant  fact  of  the 
resurrection.  However  change  may  have  come  over 
his  body,  he  himself  was  not  changed.  He  was  "this 
same  Jesus." 

And  yet  while  we  do  well  not  to  lay  too  much 
emphasis  upon  the  body  in  thinking  of  the  resurrec- 
tion, we  must  remember  that  those  deep-souled  men 
of  Galilee  and  Judsea  needed  the  "outward  witness  for 
the  things  of  the  soul."  Without  the  sight  of  their 
risen  Lord  their  prostrate  faith  in  him  could  never 
have  found  its  marvelous  rebirth.  The  miracle  itself 
was  a  gracious  condescension  to  their  limitations — 


278    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

needing,  as  they  certainly  did,  the  sight  of  the  empty 
grave  and  the  sensible  presence  of  the  familiar  form 
of  him  whom  they  loved,  in  order  that  faith  in  him  as 
Divine  Lord  might  be  born  in  their  souls  with  unshak- 
able certainty.  Without  this  certainty  and  confidence 
we  know  that  Christianity  could  never  have  been.  Do 
we  not  see,  then,  that  the  miracle  of  the  resurrection 
more  than  any  other  event  assured  the  continuity  of 
God's  great  purpose  in  the  Christian  revelation? 
Thus  it  appears  that  the  supernatural  event  known 
as  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  far  from  being  a  "break" 
was  really  necessary  to  continuance  of  the  purposes 
of  God.  The  moral  continuity  of  the  divine  plan  de- 
manded such  adaptation  of  the  revelation  to  those  to 
whom  it  was  being  made.  From  the  moral  point  of 
view  the  resurrection  seems  inevitable  and  natural. 
After  all,  the  question  is  whether  the  resurrection 
of  Jesus  Christ  is  credible — remembering  all  that  he 
was,  and  all  that  has  come  into  the  world  from  his 
teaching,  life,  and  death. 

Miracles  and  Christian  Faith.  In  answer  to  those  who 
urge  that  belief  in  miracles  in  these  modern  days  is 
an  embarrassment  to  faith  rather  than  a  help  let  it 
be  said  that  by  belief  in  the  supernatural  we  do  not 
mean  the  acceptance  of  every  marvelous  tale  recorded 
in  the  Bible.  We  mean  acceptance  of  those  miracles 
in  which  a  great  moral  or  spiritual  purpose  of  God 
may  be  discerned.  There  are  miracles  and  miracles. 
The  miracles  of  the  Bible  run  all  the  way  from  the 
exploits  of  Samson  to  the  record  of  many  eyewitnesses 
that  they  saw  their  Lord  and  talked  with  him  after 
his  death.  Even  the  most  impervious  advocate  of 
verbal  inspiration  would  hardly  rank  these  as  equally 


PLACE  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL       279 

significant,  because  both  are  in  the  Bible.  The  vindi- 
cation of  a  miracle  on  philosophical  grounds  lies  in 
perceiving  how  it  serves  great  moral  purposes  of  God 
in  the  revelation.  A  miracle  which  does  this  will  have 
ethical  dignity  and  moral  meaning.  The  exploits  of 
Samson  and  the  tales  told  of  Elisha  and  other  mate- 
rial of  the  same  sort  fall  far  below  the  moral  level  of 
the  acts  of  Jesus  and  the  apostles  recorded  in  the  New 
Testament.  Any  modern  justification  of  the  super- 
natural as  an  essential  part  of  the  Christian  revela- 
tion demands  that  we  distinguish  between  the  miracle 
which  is  the  product  of  an  uncritical  wonder-loving 
age  and  the  miracle  of  moral  dignity  and  spiritual 
worth.  The  former  we  make  no  essential  part  of  the 
revelation.  The  latter  we  cherish  as  significant  adap- 
tations of  God's  method  in  revelation  to  an  age  that 
needed  such  signs.  In  answer,  then,  to  the  question, 
How  shall  we  distinguish?  it  may  be  suggested  that 
the  rational  acceptance  of  any  particular  miracle  as 
worthy  of  place  in  the  Christian  revelation  may  rest 
upon  three  grounds — historical  attestation,  moral 
dignity  or  ethical  appropriateness,  and  spiritual  sig- 
nificance. 

Miracles  and  Historic  Christianity.  In  answer  to  those 
Christian  thinkers  to-day  who  urge  they  do  not  need 
supernatural  events  as  an  outward  witness  for  the 
things  of  the  soul  it  is  sufficient  to  say  that  the  apos- 
tles and  early  Christians  did,  and  the  great  majority 
of  the  followers  of  Jesus  to-day  do.  It  is  a  fact  of  reli- 
gious experience  that  for  the  great  mass  of  men  posi- 
tive Christian  faith  has  not  been  able  long  to  survive 
when  confidence  in  the  supernatural  element  in  the 
Gospels  has  been  weakened.     And  certain  it  is  that 


280  FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

without  that  great  and  victorious  faith  in  Christ, 
born  in  the  early  Christians  through  belief  in  the 
supernatural,  there  would  have  been  no  Christianity. 
Without  doubt  the  testimony  of  personal  experience 
ranks  above  the  acceptance  of  historical  evidence  for 
making  the  things  of  the  spirit  real.  Ultimately  we 
know  Christ  as  Saviour  of  the  world  because  we  have 
come  to  know  him  as  our  own  Saviour.  It  was  so 
with  Paul,  and  it  is  so  with  every  one  who  really  finds 
Christ.  But  how  shall  a  soul  find  that  strong  personal 
assurance  in  experience  that  gives  the  eternal  cer- 
tainty? Is  it  not  something  we  must  grow  into? 
Does  it  not  come  with  loving  and  serving?  And  where 
do  we  begin?  Always  with  the  Christ  of  Galilee  and 
Calvary.  Always  with  the  historic  revelation — with 
the  gospel  story.  We  cannot  come  to  possess  the 
Christian  ideals  by  which  our  lives  are  to  be  shaped 
and  dominated  unless  we  begin  with  the  historic 
Christ.  Let  this  gospel  story  be  stripped  of  its  mirac- 
ulous features,  and  it  loses  its  power  to  grip  men  and 
hold  them.  There  can  be  no  going  on  in  personal  expe- 
rience to  the  certainties  of  faith  until  faith  has  grown 
up  to  it,  from  the  preceding  certainties  of  faith  in  the 
historic  revelation. 

To  a  Christian  who  says  he  has  outgrown  the  need 
of  the  supernatural  because  he  says  he  sees  God  in 
everything  the  answer  is  :  "You  say  belief  in  the  super- 
natural does  not  now  aid  your  faith.  But  it  did  aid 
your  faith.  Indeed,  without  your  belief  in  the  super- 
natural your  faith  would  probably  not  have  been  born. 
And  as  for  the  long  line  of  spiritual  ancestors  from 
whom  you  have  inherited  your  rich  spiritual  heritage, 
they  believed  in  the  miraculous  element  in  the  his- 


PLACE  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL       281 

toric  gospel.  And  could  you  ever  have  gotten  to  the 
realms  where  spiritual  truths  seem  so  clear  and  direct 
to  you,  unless  you  had  traveled  the  long  way  up  from 
a  belief  in  the  supernatural,  and  unless  you  had  en- 
tered upon  the  possession  of  the  spiritual  riches  of 
those  who  have  gone  before  you!" 

Belief  in  the  Supernatural  a  Practical  Demand  of  Faith. 
In  the  last  analysis,  belief  in  the  supernatural,  like 
all  the  rest  of  our  convictions,  comes  from  the  prac- 
tical needs  of  the  moral  life  far  more  than  from  a  log- 
ical process.  The  demands  of  religious  faith  afford 
the  best  justification.  Belief,  as  Professor  Bowne  so 
constantly  urged,  is  practical  in  its  nature.  It  is  not 
an  end  in  itself,  but  a  means  to  an  end.  It  is  valuable 
for  what  it  helps  us  to,  and  its  grounds  lie  quite  as 
much  in  practical  necessity  as  in  logical  inference. 
The  great  and  essential  thing  in  the  Christian  life  is 
not  belief  in  the  supernatural  but  faith  in  God  show- 
ing itself  in  love  and  obedience  and  in  the  Spirit  of 
Christ  in  our  relations  with  fellow  men.  But  the 
dynamic  of  Christianity,  its  moral  motive  power  for 
the  life  of  faith  and  service,  is  to  be  found  in  loyalty 
to  Jesus  Christ.  And  experience  undoubtedly  shows 
that  when  belief  in  the  supernatural  character  of 
Jesus  Christ  is  weakened  or  given  up,  the  moral 
dynamic  which  results  from  a  sense  of  personal  loy- 
alty to  him  is  greatly  diminished.  Without  the  attes- 
tation of  his  divinity,  which  the  supernatural  events 
of  his  life  gave,  the  martyrs  could  not  have  gone  cheer- 
fully to  death  trusting  steadfastly  in  him.  Nor  could 
the  countless  thousands  of  his  followers  have  acknowl- 
edged him  joyously  as  Lord  and  Master,  living  by  his 
teachings  and  dying  in  the  hope  of  eternal  fellowship 


282  FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

with  him.  Belief  in  the  supernatural  is,  after  all,  not 
so  much  a  deduction  from  evidence  as  it  is  a  reli- 
gious demand  of  the  soul.  For  the  great  mass  of  men 
the  things  of  the  spirit  do  not  remain  sure  and  stead- 
fast without  this  outward  witness,  which  God  in  his 
wise  condescension  has  graciously  granted. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  CHRISTIAN  FAITH  IN  IMMORTALITY 

Belief  in  Life  After  Death  in  Early  Religions.  Belief  in 
the  human  soul  and  its  survival  of  physical  death  is 
as  old  as  religion  itself.  And  while  it  may  not  be  as 
universal  as  the  belief  in  and  worship  of  superhuman 
spirits,  nevertheless  it  is  a  very  important  element  in 
primitive  culture.  On  the  human  side,  this  belief  un- 
doubtedly arose  in  the  thought  of  early  men  as  they 
faced  the  fact  of  death.  They  could  not  understand 
it.  They  were  unable  to  think  of  their  fellow,  who 
had  so  recently  been  among  them,  vigorous  and  active, 
as  suddenly  ceasing  to  exist.  He  had  gone  away. 
Sleep  furnished  the  basis  for  the  early  conception  that 
the  soul  or  spirit  could  leave  the  body  for  a  little 
while,  as  it  was  supposed,  and  then  return.  Then  too, 
dreams  seemed  to  furnish  corroboration  for  this  early 
belief  in  the  soul  and  its  survival.  In  the  dream  the 
dead  warrior  is  seen  back  again  fighting  with  his  fel- 
lows of  the  tribe;  the  dead  father  is  with  his  family, 
the  mother  seems  to  hold  again  the  little  child  who 
has  gone. 

In  Religion  of  Assyria  and  Babylonia.  Out  of  primitive 
religion  grew  the  great  historic  religions,  and  in  none 
of  these  is  the  belief  in  the  soul  and  its  survival  of 
death  lacking.  In  the  religion  of  ancient  Babylonia 
and  Assyria  there  is  no  trace  of  a  belief  that  death 

283 


284    FOUNDATIONS  OP  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

ends  the  life  of  the  individual.  The  spirits  of  the  dead 
all  go  to  an  immense  underground  cavern  called 
Aralu.  The  entrance  to  this  vast  place  was  near  a 
great  mountain  where  the  sun  goes  down.  All  who 
enter  have  to  cross  a  river.  Here  their  life  is  a 
shadowy  and  joyless  counterpart  of  the  earthly  exist- 
ence. To  what  extent  the  souls  of  the  departed  are 
conscious  of  their  sad  state  does  not  appear.  No  ideas 
of  reward  or  retribution  are  found  in  these  early  con- 
ceptions.1 

In  Early  Aryan  Religion.  Among  Aryan  peoples  the 
same  general  view  of  life  after  death  prevailed  with 
some  significant  additions.  Thus  besides  the  cheer- 
less underworld  there  now  appears  a  happier  land, 
above  ground,  far  away  toward  the  setting  sun.  At 
first  this  better  abode  was  for  the  chiefs,  who  had  had 
the  best  of  everything  in  this  life,  and  for  the  bravest 
warriors  who  had  fought  in  defense  of  the  tribe. 
Little  by  little  it  became  the  belief  that  the  valiant 
and  the  good  at  death  went  to  the  happier  land  to  be 
with  the  chiefs  and  the  heroes,  while  the  cowardly  and 
the  bad  went  to  the  old  dreary  abode  underground. 
And  here  is  the  beginning  of  the  idea  of  retribution 
in  the  after  life.  With  the  growth  of  ethical  ideals 
and  the  increasing  emphasis  upon  each  as  a  moral 
individual,  standards  were  formed  for  the  judging  of 
conduct,  and  a  doctrine  of  reward  and  punishment 
came  into  religious  thinking.  When  the  Indo-Iraniau 
tribes  separated  to  form  the  Persian  and  the  Hindu 
peoples,  the  former  developed  a  well-defined  set  of  be- 
liefs in  regard  to  life  after  death.  These  included 
a  judgment,  a  resurrection,  a  blessed  abode,  or  heaven, 


1  See  Jastrow,  Religion  of  the  Babylonians  and  Assyrians,  chap.  xxv. 


CHRISTIAN  FAITH  IN  IMMORTALITY  285 

and  a  dark  and  cheerless  abode,  or  hell.  But  it  must 
be  remembered  that  so  long  as  religion  remained 
tribal  or  national  it  was  a  man's  relation  to  the  tribe 
which  determined  where  his  soul  went.  The  ancient 
Persian  belief  was  that  their  own  people  went  to 
heaven  and  other  peoples  to  hell.  The  Aryan  invaders 
of  India  seem  not  to  have  developed  the  conception 
of  rewards  and  retribution  in  the  after  life,  for  it  is 
not  found  in  the  Vedas.  As  the  early  Vedic  faith 
stiffened  into  Brahmanism  the  conception  of  trans- 
migration of  souls  took  the  place  of  the  primitive 
heaven  and  hell  beliefs.  And  in  time  with  the  growth 
of  moral  standards  by  which  to  judge  the  conduct  of 
the  individual,  transmigration  took  on  the  character 
of  retribution,  if  not  reward.  Thus  the  hell  of  Brah- 
manism became  an  undesirable  rebirth.2 

The  early  Greeks  shared  with  other  primitive  peo- 
ples the  belief  that  the  soul  is  immortal  and  that  at 
death  it  leaves  the  body  to  continue  existence  in  a  far- 
away subterranean  abode.  This  place  they  called 
Hades.  But  it  must  be  remembered  that  in  early 
Greek  thought  Hades  does  not  correspond  to  the  later 
ideas  either  of  heaven  or  hell.  It  was  believed  in 
simply  because  the  idea  of  annihilation  seemed  im- 
possible to  the  early  mind.  In  the  Odyssey  (Book 
XI)  we  have  the  Homeric  thought  concerning  the 
existence  of  those  who  have  gone  beyond  death.  Men 
did  not  hope  for  it  as  we  do  for  heaven,  nor  were  there 
associated  with  it  the  horrors  of  the  mediaeval  hell.  It 
had  no  ethical  meaning.  Immortality,  or  "immortal 
souls"  in  the  modern  sense,  would  have  had  no  mean- 
ing of  hope  or  joy  to  the  men  of  the  Homeric  age. 


2  See  Rhys  David's  Hibbert  Lectures  on  Buddhism,  p.  81. 


286    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

The  survival  of  primitive  ancestor  worship  among  the 
Greeks  no  doubt  delayed  the  development  of  any 
moralizing  of  the  view  of  the  after  life. 

But  in  the  seventh  and  sixth  centuries  B.  C.  Greek 
religion  underwent  a  remarkable  development.  The 
mythological  conceptions  of  the  earlier  days  were 
transformed  into  a  religious  philosophy  by  the  Orphic 
thinkers — poets  and  philosophers  of  the  age  of  the 
Greek  awakening.  The  soul,  not  the  body,  is  now 
thought  of  as  the  reality.  It  lives  in  the  prison  house 
of  the  body,  but  is  divine  in  origin,  and  when  duly 
purified  will  be  fit  for  fellowship  with  the  Divine 
Spirit  in  the  abodes  of  the  blessed.  The  religion  of 
the  Mysteries  takes  the  place  of  the  older  popular 
worship  of  polytheism.  A  monotheism  begins  to  grow 
up  in  the  thinking  of  the  most  enlightened.  But  it 
was  speculative,  and  for  the  practical  purposes  of 
religious  worship  the  older  pantheon  of  gods  wTas 
retained.  The  object  of  the  Orphic  doctrines  and  cere- 
monials was  the  discipline  and  purification  of  the  soul. 
To  the  initiated  the  future  held  no  terrors.  Immor- 
tality was  the  essential  attribute  of  the  Divine,  and 
he  who  came  into  harmony  with  the  Divine  became 
immortal. 

In  Keligion  of  Ancient  Egypt.  No  religion  of  antiquity 
worked  out  doctrines  of  the  future  life  in  such  detail 
as  that  of  Egypt.  The  "Book  of  the  Dead"  is  a  very 
remarkable  record  and  is  one  of  the  oldest  documents 
of  remote  antiquity  dating  from  a  period  between 
2500  and  3000  B.  C.3  The  journey  of  the  soul  into  the 
realms  beyond  death  was  thought  to  be  full  of  dangers. 
Evil  beings  in  many  terrible  forms  infested  the  path- 


»  A  translation  by  E.  A.  Wallis  Budge  is  now  published  in  three  small  volumes. 


CHRISTIAN  FAITH  IN  IMMORTALITY  287 

way  before  the  lonely  traveler  could  reach  the  judg- 
ment hall  of  Osiris,  and  thence,  if  acquitted,  pass  to 
the  abodes  of  the  blessed.  And  so  the  custom  grew  up 
of  securing  from  the  priests  the  potent  magical  for- 
mulae which  would  drive  away  the  terrors  or  render 
them  powerless  to  harm  the  soul.  At  first  these  were 
written  on  the  inside  of  the  mummy  case  or  coffin. 
But  when  they  became  very  extensive  they  had  to  be 
inscribed  upon  papyrus  rolls  and  put  into  the  coffin. 
From  these  grew  that  vast  collection  of  instructions 
and  incantation  formulae — the  work  of  the  priests — 
of  which  the  Book  of  the  Dead  is  a  record.  We  can- 
not go  into  the  Egyptian  beliefs  concerning  the  life 
after  death.  It  would  include  almost  the  whole  of 
Egyptian  religion.  It  must  suffice  to  note  that  here  in 
this  land  of  the  Nile  conceptions  of  moral  merit  and 
demerit  and  a  system  of  rewards  and  retribution  in 
the  after  life  grew  up  two  or  three  thousand  years  in 
advance  of  the  Greeks  or  the  Hebrews.  Egyptian  reli- 
gion is  not  yet  fully  systematized  and  adequate 
history  of  its  development  is  not  yet  possible.  Look- 
ing at  the  mass  of  material  we  now  have,  it  appears  as 
a  wonderful  and  pathetic  mingling  of  well  developed 
religious  ideas  and  high  moral  conceptions  with  sur- 
viving superstitions  of  the  lowest  grade,  the  whole 
permeated  with  a  contemptible  priestcraft.  But  the 
important  point  for  our  present  discussion  is  that 
Egypt's  religion  was  dominated  through  and  through 
with  the  belief  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  and, 
unlike  contemporary  peoples,  the  thought  of  the 
Egyptians  looked  constantly  to  the  future. 

Hebrew  Beliefs.     Among  the   Hebrews   the  current 
beliefs  with  regard  to  life  beyond  death  were  not  dif- 


288    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

ferent  from  those  of  the  Greeks  of  the  Homeric  age. 
The  vast  underground  world  they  called  Sheol.4  It 
seems  practically  to  have  been  equivalent  to  the  Greek 
Hades — a  great  subterranean  region  where  the  souls 
of  the  dead  went  and  where  they  lived  a  shadowy  life 
in  a  cheerless  condition.  Comparatively  little  is  said 
of  Sheol,  and  there  is  every  indication  that  the  con- 
dition of  the  souls  after  death  occupied  an  unimpor- 
tant place  in  early  Hebrew  thinking.  The  practical 
character  of  the  Hebrews  and  their  lack  of  imagina- 
tion is  seen  in  the  contrast  between  the  fullness  of 
detail  concerning  Hades  which  we  find  in  Greek  liter- 
ature and  the  bare  suggestions  as  to  the  character  of 
Sheol  in  the  Old  Testament. 

The  belief  in  the  immortality  of  the  individual 
rests  upon  two  great  truths  which  did  not  come  into 
the  religious  thinking  of  Israel  until  the  teachings  of 
the  prophets  had  begun  to  bear  fruit.  The  first  is  the 
moral  relation  of  the  individual  to  God.  This  great 
idea  was  not  realized  until  ethical  monotheism  had 
become  firmly  established.  But  after  the  exile  the 
supreme  values  in  religion  became  those  of  the  per- 
sonal life,  and  then  and  not  until  then  was  any  doc- 
trine of  personal  immortality  possible.  It  might  have 
followed  almost  immediately  after  the  teachings  of 
the  great  prophet  of  the  exile,  but  for  the  fact  that 
the  Puritan  revival  under  Ezra  was  given  up  to  the 


*  This  home  of  the  departed  is  deep  and  dark  (Job  11;  8.  21,  22);  it  is  in  the  bowels 
of  the  earth  and  has  many  depths  (Num.  16.  30;  Deut.  32.  22;  Prov.  9.  18).  It  is 
fastened  with  gates  and  bars  (Isa.  38.  10;  Job  17.  16).  This  means  that  the  souls  once 
in  cannot  get  out.  In  Sheol  are  the  souls  of  the  dead  (the  Rephaim) ,  and  evil  spirits 
(Psa  84.  13;  89.  48;  Prov.  23.  14;  Ezek.  31.  17;  32.  21).  It  is  all-devouring,  cruel,  and 
implacable  (Isa.  5.  14;  Cant.  8.  6;  Prov.  1.  12;  27.  20;  30.  16;  Hab.  2.  5).  There  is  no 
return  or  resurrection  from  the  dead  (Job  7.  9f.).  In  Sheol  there  is  no  mental  activity, 
or  memory  of  the  past  (Job  14.  13;  Psa.  6.  5;  31.  17;  49.  14;  88.  3-6;  Isa  38.  18).  From 
Sheol  the  shades  of  the  departed  might  be  recalled  by  necromancy  (see  1  Sam.  J.&. 
7-20). 


CHRISTIAN  FAITH  IN  IMMORTALITY  289 

establishment  of  the  external  features  of  religion — 
the  formation  of  the  canon  of  sacred  writings  and  the 
establishment  of  the  ritual  of  the  priestly  law.  The 
development  of  religious  thought  which  had  gone  on 
so  rapidly  under  the  prophets  was  almost  wholly 
stalled.  Then,  too,  the  delay  of  the  promised  king- 
dom of  the  Messiah  occasioned  the  skeptical  reaction 
of  the  third  century.  It  was  not  until  the  persecu- 
tions broke  forth  in  the  second  century  under  Anti- 
ochus  Epiphanes  that  the  religious  faith  of  Judaism 
burned  again  with  a  clear  and  steady  flame.  Then 
it  was  that  the  nation  began  to  take  seriously  and  at 
full  face  value  the  teachings  of  their  great  prophets 
concerning  the  experience  of  fellowship  with  Jeho- 
vah. The  book  of  Daniel  was  written  during  these 
fearful  days  when  the  pagan  king  was  seeking  to 
root  out  the  faith  of  Judaism.  The  story  of  the 
bloody  conflict  between  Antiochus  and  the  faithful 
Jews  under  Judas  Maccabaeus  is  familiar.  It  was 
a  life  and  death  struggle  for  Judaism.  Many  had 
fallen  and  many  must  yet  fall.  The  book  of  Daniel5 
proclaimed  that  those  who  had  fallen  in  the  Lord's 
battles  would  not  lose  the  joy  of  the  final  victory. 
God  will  raise  them  up  again.  They  have  laid  down 
their  lives  for  God,  therefore  God  will  raise  them 
up  to  a  life  of  blessedness  in  the  Messianic  kingdom. 
And  thus  the  faith  in  a  resurrection  and  a  personal 
immortality  first  grew  strong  amid  the  fires  of  perse- 
cution. It  was  taught  by  the  Pharisees  in  connection 
with  a  strict  doctrine  of  future  rewards  and  punish- 
ments during  the  generations  immediately  preceding 
the  coming  of  Christ. 


*  Dan.  12.  1-3.    Compare  Enoch  90.  20-26. 


290    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

Immortality  in  the  New  Testament.     By  this  time  it 
appears  that  the  word  "immortality"  should  stand  for 
the  belief  in  the  continuation  of  the  personal  life  of 
the    individual    after    death.      The    miserable    and 
shadowy  existence  in  Hades  or  Sheol,  with  no  life  of 
thought  or  feeling  and  little  or  no  memory  of  the  past, 
cannot  be  termed  immortality  in  the  sense  in  which 
we  use  the  word  in  Christian  thought.     A  search  of 
the  Old  Testament  soon  convinces  us  that  immortality 
with  the  richer  content  which  Christ  gave  the  belief 
is  practically  absent.    True,  later  teachers  of  Judaism 
developed  a  doctrine  of  personal  rewards  aud  pun- 
ishment.   And  Sheol  was  transformed  into  the  more 
awful   "Gehenna,"   the  name   being  applied   to   the 
ravine  of  Hiunom,  into  which  the  offal   from  the 
temple  and  other  refuse  was  thrown.     Here  a  fire 
burned  constantly.    This  dread  spot,  according  to  the 
orthodox  teachers  of  Judaism,  was  a  fitting  illustra- 
tion of  the  place  to  which  the  souls  of  the  wicked 
would  be  consigned  at  death.    It  was  a  fearful  teach- 
ing, the  Jewish  antecedent  of  the  later  mediaeval  doc- 
trine of  a  hell  of  fire  and  torments.     The  heaven  of 
Judaism  was  thought  of  as  the  glorious  consumma- 
tion of  the  Messianic  kingdom.     It  would  take  place 
on  earth  and  the  righteous  dead  would  be  raised  at 
the  sound  of  a  mighty  trumpet  to  meet  the  Lord  and 
his  Anointed.6 

Faith  of  the  Early  Christians  Based  on  the  Teaching  of 
Jesus.  But  what  a  contrast  as  we  turn  from  the  Old 
Testament  to  the  New !    If  the  Old  Testament  is  prac- 


•  See  Isa  26  19  and  Dan.  12.  2.  Compare  also  Enoch  51.  5;  Baruch  30.  1-5;  IV 
Esdras  6.  23;  7.  32;  Orac.  Syb.4, 173,  and  many  other  places  ia  the  Jewish  apocalypses 
(compare  1  Thess.  4.  15). 


CHRISTIAN  FAITH  IN  IMMORTALITY  291 

tically  without  a  doctrine  of  immortality,  the  New 
Testament  is  full  of  it.  The  solemn  cadences  of  the 
thirty-seventh  and  ninetieth  psalms,  which  mourn- 
fully recite  the  brevity  and  weakness  of  our  pilgrim 
life,  give  place  to  joyous  expressions  of  victory.  The 
faith  in  personal  immortality  dominates  everything 
in  the  New  Testament.  It  gives  meaning  to  the  word 
"hope"  when  used  in  the  Christian  sense.  In  the  faith 
of  the  early  Christian  Church,  based,  as  it  was,  upon 
the  teaching  of  Christ  and  upon  a  sense  of  personal 
fellowship  with  him,  we  find  the  belief  in  immortality 
with  the  highest  ethical  implications  and  the  richest 
spiritual  content. 

The  Christian  Faith  in  Immortality.  Prom  Jesus's 
teaching  and  life  came  the  Christian  belief  in  the 
future.  This  belief  is,  in  a  word,  that  through  faith 
in  Christ  the  believer  receives  the  gift  of  eternal  life. 
Physical  death  has  no  power  to  end  the  life  of  the 
spirit.  The  life  beyond  death  has  its  beginnings  in 
the  present,  and  there  are  common  elements  enough 
to  make  our  spiritual  existence  one.  But  the  life 
beyond  death  will  transcend  the  present  life.  All 
those  factors  which  make  the  present  unhappy  and 
sorrowful  will  be  eliminated.  Death  will  be  past, 
physical  weakness,  pain,  and  disease  will  be  no  more. 
Disaster,  disappointment,  and  everything  which 
makes  life  painful  will  be  no  part  of  the  life  beyond 
death.  In  the  beautiful  words  of  the  apostle  John, 
"God  shall  wipe  away  all  tears  from  their  eyes."  The 
physical  body  with  its  susceptibility  to  disease  and 
decay  will  be  a  thing  of  the  past.  But  the  body  serves 
such  important  uses  in  the  personal  life  that  the 
apostle  Paul,  when  he  tried  to  think  out  the  conditions 


292    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

of  the  glorified  life,  could  not  conceive  the  spirit  with- 
out some  embodiment,  and  so  he  teaches  that  the  soul 
will  have  a  "spiritual  body"  suited  to  the  conditions 
of  the  life  beyond  death  (1  Cor.  15).  Paul  could  not 
conceive  of  "pure  spirit" — that  is,  spirit  apart  from 
all  kinds  of  bodily  manifestation — without  a  sacrifice 
of  personal  reality  and  identity.  Nor  can  we.  Per- 
sonal recognition  seems  inconceivable  without  a  body 
of  some  kind.  And  so,  because  of  the  fact  that  we 
cannot  possibly  transcend  our  finite  experience  in 
trying  to  think  what  the  life  beyond  death  may  be,  we 
need  the  concept  the  apostle  has  given,  as  a  help  to 
faith.  The  dogma  that  the  material  body  of  our  pres- 
ent life  will  be  reanimated  is  no  part  of  the  Christian 
faith  in  immortality,  even  though  it  has  found  its  way 
into  theology.  It  is  essentially  a  materialistic  and 
pagan  creed.  The  Christian  faith  in  immortality 
means  the  continuation  of  all  the  higher  and  finer 
personal  relationships  which  enrich  our  human  life. 
Those  who  are  near  and  dear  to  each  other  in  the 
home  circle,  or  in  the  bonds  of  friendship  are  not  to 
be  separated  in  the  life  beyond  death. 

All  our  thinking  must  be  under  the  thought  forms 
known  as  time  and  space.  These  we  cannot  escape; 
and  if  we  are  to  think  at  all,  it  must  be  in  these  rela- 
tions which  condition  all  our  experience.  The  life 
beyond  death  is  everlasting.  We  may  dimly  adum- 
brate the  meaning  here,  but  we  really  cannot  compre- 
hend it.  To  do  so  would  be  to  pass  beyond  the  condi- 
tions and  limitations  of  our  finite  thinking.  Is  the 
immortal  life  timeless?  Are  the  conditions  under 
which  those  live  who  have  gone  beyond  the  veil  totally 
different  from  those  which  govern  all  our  present 


CHRISTIAN  FAITH  IN  IMMORTALITY  293 

thought  and  activity?  We  cannot  tell.  Is  heaven  a 
place?  It  is  not  easy  to  think  of  existence  without 
definite  space  relations.  But  the  more  permanent  and 
profound  matter,  after  all,  is  not  space  relations  but 
personal  relations.  Where  is  the  home?  In  the  house 
where  all  the  things  are  gathered  which  minister  to 
the  comfort  of  those  in  the  home  circle?  Yes.  But 
some  day  the  devouring  flame  may  turn  the  house  and 
all  in  it  to  ashes.  But  the  father  and  mother  with  the 
children  safe  may  gather  and  offer  a  prayer  of  grati- 
tude that  the  home  was  not  broken  into.  The  real 
home  is  not  so  much  a  place,  but  exists,  rather,  in  the 
sacred  relationships  of  those  who  make  the  home 
circle.  Love  makes  the  home  in  the  most  enduring 
sense.  Space  relations  are  always  relative  to  us. 
"Here"  is  where  we  are — the  point  of  departure  from 
our  vision,  our  activity.  "Where  is  heaven?"  it  may 
be  asked.  We  do  not  know.  But  Jesus  taught  men 
that  the  kingdom  of  heaven  begins  here  and  now.  It 
is  a  condition  of  the  soul  growing  into  something 
nobler  and  diviner  as  time  goes  on.  Heaven  is  fellow- 
ship with  God — the  love  and  service  of  fellow  men — 
and  it  begins  in  this  life  if  it  begins  at  all.  In  speak- 
ing of  the  perfected  heavenly  life  after  death  the  New 
Testament  uses  the  language  not  of  space  location  but 
of  personal  relations.  Paul  speaks  of  the  life  after 
death  as  being  a  condition  when  he  will  be  "at  home 
with  the  Lord."  Jesus  promised  his  disciples  that 
they  should  be  with  him  in  the  "Father's  house  of 
many  mansions."  This  is  the  faith  of  the  follower  of 
Jesus  Christ  in  the  life  beyond  death. 

Foundation  of  this  Faith  in  Immortality.     This  Chris- 
tian faith  in  the  life  beyond  death  is  founded  upon  the 


294    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

teaching  of  Jesus  Christ  and  the  resurrection  of  Jesus 
from  the  dead.    Let  us  briefly  consider  them. 

The  Teaching  of  Jesus.  Christian  faith  in  the  life 
after  death — whether  in  the  first  century  or  in  the 
twentieth — rests  upon  what  Jesus  Christ  taught  and 
all  that  he  is.  Two  great  aspects  of  his  teaching  are 
most  significant.  First,  he  taught  the  supreme  value 
of  human  personality.  Men  are  of  infinite  worth. 
What  mean  those  matchless  parables  of  the  lost  coin, 
the  lost  sheep,  and  the  lost  son?  Just  this,  that  the 
human  soul  has  a  permanent  and  undiminished  value. 
This  love  for  men  as  of  infinite  worth  is  one  of  the 
great  dominant  motives  in  Jesus's  wonderful  devo- 
tion to  humanity.  He  saw  in  the  most  debased  the 
image  of  the  eternal.  No  matter  how  dimmed  with 
sin  and  degradation,  it  was  there,  an  intrinsic  and 
unalterable  value.  It  was  this  sense  of  the  incompar- 
able worth  of  human  personality  as  compared  with 
all  mere  material  values,  which  lies  at  the  basis  of  the 
conviction  of  immortality  which  Jesus  taught.  For 
him  personality  was  the  only  reality.  And  with  God 
as  the  Supreme  Personality  the  universe,  so  far  as  it 
is  significant  and  permanent,  is  a  universe  consisting 
in  personal  relations  and  moral  values.  "This  is 
eternal  life,  that  they  should  know  thee,  the  only  true 
God,  and  him  whom  thou  didst  send." 

Second,  the  ground  of  this  lofty  valuation  of  men 
is  found  in  the  fact  that  Jesus  always  thought  of  men 
as  "sons"  of  God.  They  are  divine  in  their  origin — 
children  of  the  Eternal  Father.  The  "kingdom  of 
God"  meant  the  coming  into  a  full  realization  of  this 
great  relation  of  divine  sonship  and  attaining  the 
actual  experience  of  fellowship  with  God.    In  Jesus's 


CHRISTIAN  FAITH  IN  IMMORTALITY  295 

thought  religion  means  the  fellowship  of  man,  whom 
God  has  made  with  spiritual  capacities,  with  God 
himself.  And  fellowship  with  God  means  entering 
into  participation  with  the  life  of  God;  and  this  in 
turn  implies  that  such  a  spiritual  and  divine  fellow- 
ship endures  beyond  the  physical  change  called  death. 
Thus  the  immortality  of  the  finite  spirit  follows  as  a 
consequence  when  men  enter  the  spiritual  life — the 
life  of  God.  Jesus  never  argued  for  immortality.  He 
simply  assumed  it  in  all  that  he  said  concerning  the 
relation  of  men  to  God. 

The  Resurrection  of  Jesus  from  the  Dead.  Not  only  does 
the  Christian  faith  in  life  beyond  death  rest  upon 
Christ's  teaching,  but  it  has  also  the  foundation  of 
historic  occurrence.  The  resurrection  of  Jesus  raises 
inevitable  questions  as  to  the  credibility  of  such  an 
event.  These  may  be  reduced  to  two  considerations ; 
first,  Is  the  event  philosophically  credible?  and, 
second,  Is  it  historically  credible?  We  have  sought 
to  answer  the  first  of  these  questions  in  the  preced- 
ing chapter.  Belief  in  God  as  a  Personal  Being  mani- 
festing himself  in  an  historic  revelation  answers  all 
scruples  as  to  the  possibility  of  such  an  extraordinary 
event.  For  God  must  be  thought  of  as  supreme  over 
nature,  and  his  purposes  may  be  expressed  in  the  un- 
usual and  (to  us)  unfamiliar  events  quite  as  easily 
as  in  the  ordinary  and  regular  processes  of  nature. 

Second,  Is  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  historically 
credible?  Testimony  that  Jesus  was  seen  after  his 
death  by  many  competent  witnesses  is  repeatedly 
recorded  in  ancient  documents  which  are  universally 
considered  perfectly  genuine.  There  are  only  three 
possibilities:   (1)   That  Jesus  never  really  died,  but 


296    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

revived  after  a  prolonged  swoon.  (2)  That  he  died 
and  never  rose  again.  (3)  That  he  died  and  did  rise, 
even  as  his  followers  testified.  Now,  we  certainly  can- 
not repeat  the  convincing  arguments  which  show  the 
utter  untenability  of  the  first  and  second  of  these 
possibilities.  They  are  to  be  found  in  many  excellent 
works7  on  evidences  of  Christianity.  It  is  very  cer- 
tain that  fewer  difficulties  are  encountered  when  we 
accept  the  Gospel  records  of  Jesus's  resurrection  as 
essentially  trustworthy  accounts  of  actual  historical 
occurrences.  Undoubtedly  the  greatest  single  argu- 
ment for  the  fact  of  Jesus's  resurrection  is  the  revival 
of  the  prostrate  faith  of  his  disciples.  There  is,  in- 
deed, no  adequate  way  of  accounting  for  this  except 
to  receive  at  face  value  the  statements  of  the  dis- 
ciples that  they  saw  their  Lord.  The  fact  that  Chris- 
tianity was  founded  upon  the  resurrection  of  Jesus 
and  would  have  been  impossible  without  that  event 
sufficiently  indicates  the  reason  why  such  an  event 
was  necessary,  if  the  historic  revelation  of  God 
through  Christ  was  to  go  on. 

We  have  now  traced  in  brief  outline  the  belief  in 
immortality  as  it  has  developed  in  the  growth  of  reli- 
gion, especially  in  Christianity.  We  see  that  this 
belief  has  played  no  small  part  in  the  history  of  reli- 
gion. In  Christianity  it  has  become  a  deep  spiritual 
conviction  with  an  ethical  content  far  higher  than  in 
any  other  religion.  We  come  now  to  the  question 
whether  all  the  knowledge  of  the  nature  of  man  and 
of  the  world  about  us,  which  has  been  gained  through 
modern  science,  adds  to  or  detracts  from  the  credi- 


7  See  Fisher,  Grounds  of  Theistic  and  Christian  Belief,  p.  166f.;  also  A.  B.  Bruce, 
Apologetics,  chap.  IV. 


CHRISTIAN  FAITH  IN  IMMORTALITY  297 

bility  of  this  belief.  And  what  truths  can  we  gather 
from  the  best  thinking  in  recent  philosophy  which  will 
strengthen  our  faith  in  the  continuance  of  personal 
life  beyond  death?  We  shall  not  seek  logical  proof  or 
conclusive  demonstration,  for  there  is  none.  No  liv- 
ing man  has  ever  had  the  experience  of  immortality. 
If  it  is  a  real  experience,  it  is  a  future  event  for  each 
of  us.  And  in  the  very  nature  of  the  case  the  proof 
of  a  future  event  is  logically  impossible.  All  we  can 
hope  to  do  is  to  elevate  belief  from  the  level  of  a  fond 
hope  to  that  of  a  conviction  resting  upon  rational  con- 
siderations which  seem  to  imply  an  overwhelming 
degree  of  probability. 

Belief,  as  we  have  seen  (Chapter  III),  consists 
essentially  in  accepting  a  thing  as  true  on  adequate 
rational  grounds.  It  remains  now  to  ask,  "Upon 
what  rational  grounds  may  we  base  the  belief  in  im- 
mortality?" For  the  man  who  thinks,  faith  must  be 
preceded  by  accredited  belief.  Faith  is  the  personal 
relationship  expressing  itself  in  loyalty,  confidence, 
and  trust.  This  necessary  relation  of  belief  to  faith 
is  well  expressed  by  the  apostle  James :  "He  who  Com- 
eth to  God  [in  faith]  must  believe  that  he  is,  and  that 
he  is  the  rewarder  of  them  who  diligently  seek  him." 
Putting  this  truth  in  other  phrase,  it  would  be,  Reli- 
gious faith  through  which  we  experience  the  presence 
of  God  must  rest  not  only  upon  the  belief  in  God's 
existence  but  also  upon  the  conviction  that  God  re- 
veals himself  to  those  who  seek  to  know  him.  Belief 
in  the  continuation  of  the  personal  life  is  necessary 
to  that  deeper  trust  and  confidence  in  God  which  is 
the  soul  of  Christian  living.  What,  then,  we  repeat, 
are  the  foundations  of  belief  in  the  life  bevond  death  ? 


298    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

Grounds  for  the  Christian  Belief  in  Immortality  from 
Science.  Let  us  ask,  first,  what  science  may  offer  in 
the  way  of  considerations  for  the  belief  in  immortal- 
ity. There  is  no  direct  proof  from  evidence.  The 
data  of  science  are  phenomena,  and  thus  far  nothing 
has  been  won  which  gives  evidence  of  the  continuance 
of  life  after  death.  It  is  true  that  during  the  past 
few  years  a  good  deal  of  attention  has  been  devoted 
by  some  reputable  investigators  to  what  is  called 
psychical  research.  But  the  consensus  of  opinion 
among  scholars  to-day  is  undoubtedly  that,  in  spite  of 
a  vast  amount  of  dredging  in  the  turbid  waters  of 
"psychic  phenomena,"  little,  if  anything,  has  come  up 
which  throws  light  on  the  problem  of  the  continuance 
of  personal  consciousness  after  death,  while  consid- 
erable material  may  have  been  gained  which  will  aid 
in  the  further  study  of  that  borderland  in  psychology 
— the  realm  of  the  subconscious. 

But  even  if  science  can  offer  no  direct  affirmation, 
she  is  equally  impotent  to  urge  any  direct  negative. 
While  there  is  no  proof  in  the  ordinary  sense,  there 
is  certainly  no  disproof  of  immortality.  If,  therefore, 
we  are  to  gain  something  of  value  from  science  in 
building  a  rational  foundation  for  belief,  it  would 
not  be  by  the  way  of  direct  demonstrations  but, 
rather,  by  broad  inferences  from  the  great  facts 
and  doctrines  which  form  our  scientific  faith  to- 
day. We  must  endeavor  to  relate  the  belief  in 
immortality  to  our  other  beliefs  and  find  a  rational 
place  for  it  in  the  whole  of  our  thinking.  Only  thus 
is  it  a  real  belief,  resting  upon  a  solid  foundation, 
and  only  thus  can  it  lead  to  broad  and  intelligent 
faith. 


CHRISTIAN  FAITH  IN  IMMORTALITY  299 

Let  ns  note  one  or  two  objections  which  are  offered 
to  the  belief  in  immortality. 

It  is  sometimes  urged  that  the  pedigree  of  this  be- 
lief is  against  it.  Are  we  to  accept  as  profoundly  sig- 
nificant and  true  a  belief  which  originated,  as  an- 
thropology assures  us,  in  the  crude  thinking  of  prim- 
itive peoples  when  they  came  face  to  face  with  the 
familiar  yet  mysterious  fact  of  death?  But  this  ob- 
jection loses  what  force  it  seems  to  have  when  it  is 
remembered  that  all  our  great  beliefs  started  in  very 
lowly  beginnings.  The  value  of  a  belief  or  a  whole 
science  is  not  diminished  by  the  humbleness  of  its 
human  origin.  Is  medicine  the  less  scientific  and 
valuable  because  it  has  its  origins  in  magic,  or  chem- 
istry because  it  began  in  alchemy,  or  astronomy  be- 
because  it  began  in  astrology?  The  fact  is  that  the 
value  and  truth  in  a  belief  or  institution  or  science  is 
not  to  be  determined  by  its  origin,  but  by  its  develop- 
ment, not  by  the  manner  of  its  beginning,  but  by  what 
it  leads  to. 

Another  objection  to  immortality  has  been  found 
in  our  inability  to  conceive  or  even  to  imagine  what 
a  life  apart  from  bodily  conditions  could  be.  It  is 
true  that  our  thought  cannot  transcend  the  forms 
imposed  upon  it  by  our  conscious  experience.  We  are 
not  able  to  conceive  what  a  spirit  would  be  like  abso- 
lutely without  these  bodily  means  of  expression  and 
communication  with  other  personal  spirits  which  are 
so  fundamental  to  our  human  life.  The  apostle  Paul 
could  not  conceive  of  personal  spirits  as  disembodied 
(2  Cor.  5.  3),  and  for  this  reason  he  conceived  of  a 
"spiritual  body"  (1  Cor.  15).  The  adjective  seems  at 
first  to  cancel  the  noun.    But  not  so.    On  the  plane  of 


300    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

our  finite  experience  we  must  think  of  a  body  as  the 
vehicle  or  means  of  recognition,  communication,  and 
expression.  But  does  our  finite  experience  exhaust 
reality?  It  is  one  of  the  cardinal  fallacies  of  which 
the  materialist  stands  convicted  that  he  assumes  that 
it  does.  Is  there  any  direct  evidence  in  experience  for 
the  reality  of  the  atom  and  the  electron?8  We  may 
believe  in  their  existence  quite  as  firmly  as  the  mate- 
rialist, but  insist  that  the  ground  of  our  certainty  is 
rational  inference,  not  direct  evidence  in  sense  expe- 
rience. The  ether  is  inconceivable  in  the  sense  that 
we  cannot  imagine  how  it  can  have  the  properties  as- 
signed to  it,  But  we  believe  in  it.  We  are  perfectly 
free  to  admit,  then,  that  some  things  may  be  admitted 
as  rationally  possible  which  we  are  not  able  to  imagine 
or  conceive.  Men  do  this  in  science  with  no  logical 
qualms.  But  they  stop  at  the  belief  in  immortality 
because  they  cannot  conceive  it,  and  therefore  falsely 
conclude  that  there  is  no  rational  ground  for  the 
belief. 

It  is  at  this  point  that  grave  difficulties  meet  every 
attempt  to  think  out  with  any  detail  the  conditions 
of  personal  existence  after  death.  Staggering  ques- 
tions and  unmanageable  difficulties  soon  appear.  Do 
little  children  grow  into  mature  intelligence  in  the 
life  beyond?  Does  the  man  whose  powers  of  thought 
and  feeling  fail  as  he  advances  into  old  age  and  whose 
life  at  last  flickers  out  as  does  the  flame  of  the  candle 
in  the  socket — does  he  undergo  a  mental  rejuvena- 
tion? There  are  no  answers.  Thinkers  of  maturity 
now  tacitly  agree  to  leave  such  matters.     Many  try 


8  I  am  aware  that  some  experimenters  in  the  realm  of  molecular  physics,  while  they 
do  not  profess  to  have  seen  electrons  with  the  microscope,  think  they  have  seen  the 
flash  of  light  made  by  the  impact  of  electrons  upon  a  metallic  plate  in  a  vacuum  tube. 


CHRISTIAN  FAITH  IN  IMMORTALITY  301 

not  even  to  think  of  them,  well  knowing  how  hopeless 
is  the  prospect  for  an  adequate  and  satisfying  answer.9 
Here  the  traditional  and  obsolete  conceptions  of 
the  condition  of  the  personal  spirit  beyond  death  come 
in  to  confuse  the  argument.  Theological  imagination, 
not  always  spiritual  but  often  grossly  materialistic, 
has  been  rife.  Jonathan  Edwards  was  no  insignifi- 
cant thinker,  but  his  conceptions  in  eschatology  were 
unspeakably  crude,  as  his  ferocious  sermon  on  "Sin- 
ners in  the  Hands  of  an  Angry  God"  well  testifies. 
Matters  are  not  mended  by  the  suggestion  that  this 
may  have  been  lurid  rhetoric  intended  for  moral 
effect.  The  effect  could  not  be  moral,  but,  on  the 
other  hand,  was  highly  immoral  in  that  it  taught  a 
conception  of  God  which  is  very  far  below  the  level  of 
Christian  thinking.  John  Wesley's  sermon  on  the 
"Worm  that  Dieth  Not,  and  the  Fire  that  Is  Not 
Quenched,"  while  not  odious,  produces  a  revulsion  of 
feeling  in  the  mind  of  everyone  whose  conception  of 
God  has  been  set  by  the  teachings  of  Jesus.  WThy  is 
it  that  the  old-fashioned  popular  conceptions  of 
heaven  are  now  treated  so  lightly — often  burlesqued 
and  made  the  source  of  jests?  Because  it  is  seen  how 
thoroughly  outgrown  and  useless  to  our  thought  they 
really  are.  Dr.  Jowett,  speaking  of  the  popular  idea 
of  heaven  as  a  place  where  the  glorified  saints  fill  in 
their  time  in  cultivating  celestial  music,  both  vocal 
and  instrumental,  says :  "To  beings  constituted  as  we 
are,  the  monotony  of  singing  psalms  would  be  as  great 
an  affliction  as  the  pains  of  hell,  and  might  even  be 


*  Any  attempt  to  think  out  the  conditions  of  life  after  death  with  any  detail  in- 
evitably leads  to  a  confusing  jumble  of  the  spiritual  and  the  palpably  material  such  as 
we  find  in  the  writings  of  Swedenborg  and  others  who  have  tried  to  follow  this  obscure 
pathway. 


302    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

pleasantly  interrupted  by  them."  Some  years  ago  a 
popular  pamphlet  entitled  Intra  Muros  had  wide  cir- 
culation. It  was  an  account  of  a  wonderful  dream 
which  the  author,  a  woman,  professes  to  have  had. 
The  book  was  a  highly  imaginative  conception  of  what 
heaven  must  be,  set  forth  with  much  detail  in  pictorial 
description.  Its  popularity  was  a  pathetic  evidence 
of  the  hunger  of  the  human  heart  to  know  that  which 
lies  beyond  the  confines  of  our  experience.  Saint 
John  has  written  a  beautiful  description  of  the  "New 
Jerusalem."  It  is  a  city  with  streets  of  gold,  walls 
built  of  precious  jewels,  and  so  on.  But  it  is  very  evi- 
dent that  these  material  concepts  taken  out  of  our 
finite  experience  are  made  to  do  duty  for  glories  that 
are  really  inexpressible.  The  most  helpful  and  richly 
suggestive  references  to  the  life  beyond  contained  in 
the  New  Testament  are  those  of  Paul  and  Christ. 
Paul  says  that  God  has  in  store  for  those  who  love 
him  "what  eye  hath  not  seen,  what  ear  hath  not  heard, 
and  what  hath  not  entered  into  the  heart  of  man." 
In  another  place  he  refers  to  the  life  to  come  in  the 
most  beautiful  phrase,  "to  be  at  home  with  the  Lord," 
while  Jesus,  in  the  last  tender  interview  with  those  he 
loved,  said,  "Let  not  your  hearts  be  troubled;  I  am 
going  to  the  Father's  house  of  many  mansions,  and 
you  will  be  with  me  there." 

No  one  need  reject  a  great  truth  because  it  has 
been  imperfectly  grasped  and  inadequately  expressed. 
The  diamond's  value  does  not  depend  upon  the  poor 
work  which  may  have  been  done  in  settling  it.  It  is 
always  possible  to  reset  the  gem  and  throw  the  old 
setting  away.  But  the  diamond  must  not  be  thrown 
away  with  the  old  setting. 


CHRISTIAN  FAITH  IN  IMMORTALITY  303 

But  there  is  still  another  objection  more  weighty 
than  these  we  have  just  noted.  We  are  reminded  that 
nowhere  in  our  experience  do  we  see  conscious  life 
without  a  nervous  system.  The  story  of  the  evolu- 
tion of  our  rational  consciousness  as  it  is  now  written 
in  the  science  of  psychology  would  lead  us  to  conclude 
that  there  can  be  no  rational  consciousness  without 
the  physical  organism  with  its  highly  complex  nerv- 
ous system.  For  we  are  assured  that  our  conscious 
life  began  in  simple  feeling  which  resulted  from  the 
stimulus  of  nerves  with  the  resulting  reaction,  due 
to  some  form  of  motion  in  the  molecular  structure  of 
nerve  tissue.  This  reaction  of  nerve  to  stimulus  pro- 
duces in  the  newborn  infant,  for  example,  effects 
which  are  mere  feelings — a  resultant  at  first  subra- 
tional.  But  there  is  a  variety  in  the  stimulus  and 
consequently  differentiation  in  the  resulting  feelings. 
This  is  the  beginning  of  that  development  of  the  life 
of  mere  feeling  and  sensation  into  the  life  of  emotion 
and  rational  thought.  Now,  this  account  of  the  evolu- 
tion of  our  rational  consciousness,  no  less  than  what 
we  know  of  the  physical  conditions  which  appear  to 
be  necessary  for  all  our  thinking,  leads  to  the  crucial 
question  whether  our  conscious  life  does  not  depend 
absolutely  upon  the  existence  of  a  nervous  system. 
So  far  as  our  knowledge  goes  there  is  no  sensation 
without  nerves  to  react  and  produce  the  feeling  which 
seems  so  basic  and  indispensable  to  all  our  mental 
life.  The  conscious  life  of  the  individual,  therefore, 
depends  upon  the  nervous  system,  and  with  the 
destruction  of  the  latter  we  seem  compelled  to  infer 
the  extinction  of  the  former.  So  runs  the  standing 
argument  of  a  materialistic  science  and  philosophy 


304    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

against  the  belief  in  immortality.    What  shall  we  say 
to  this? 

That  there  is  a  constant  parallelism  between  mental 
events  on  the  one  hand  and  some  form  of  motion  or 
change  in  the  nervous  system  on  the  other,  all  must 
admit.  The  oft-quoted  "No  psychosis  without  neu- 
rosis" holds  so  far  as  our  finite  experience  goes.  And 
if  we  are  not  to  substitute  mere  speculation  for  ra- 
tional thinking  in  this  matter,  we  certainly  must  con- 
fine ourselves  within  the  limits  of  our  finite  expe- 
rience. The  really  important  question  here  concerns 
not  the  coexistence  of  these  two  sets  of  facts  but  their 
relation.  The  materialistic  denial  of  immortality 
rests  upon  the  very  large  assumption  that  the  nervous 
system  is  the  cause  of  thought — in  other  words,  that 
brain  produces  consciousness.  Of  course  if  this  be  the 
truth,  then  it  is  useless  to  hope  for  the  continuance 
of  any  conscious  life  after  the  dissolution  of  the  gray 
matter  of  the  brain.  But  there  are  strong  reasons  for 
thinking  that  this  is  not  the  truth.  This  position  of 
materialism  is  a  wholly  unproved  assumption  and, 
furthermore,  is  found  to  be  inadequate  in  its  power  to 
explain  the  facts.  Very  often  a  vivid  putting  of  the 
facts  of  the  psycho-physical  parallelism  obscures  the 
immense  fallacy  concealed  in  the  denial  of  immortal- 
ity from  this  point  of  view.  We  are  dramatically  re- 
minded that  if  the  heart  stops  beating  even  for  a  frac- 
tion of  a  minute  and  the  stream  of  arterial  blood 
ceases  to  surge  through  the  blood  vessels  of  the  brain, 
consciousness  begins  at  once  to  disappear.  And  when 
once  the  heart  has  ceased  to  beat  the  body  fails  to 
respond  to  every  sort  of  stimulus.  Therefore,  argues 
materialism,  the  conscious  life  of  the  person  ceases 


CHRISTIAN  FAITH  IN  IMMORTALITY  305 

with  the  functioning  of  the  brain,  and  we  are  bidden 
to  conclude  that  our  brains  are  the  source  of  our  con- 
scious existence. 

But  we  repeat  that  the  fallacy  here  lies  in  the 
assumption  that  the  brain  is  the  prior  fact  and  that 
consciousness  is  caused  by  the  functioning  of  the 
brain.  Now,  this  is  not  only  an  unproved  assumption, 
but,  as  already  remarked,  it  proves  very  inadequate 
in  the  explanation  of  the  facts.  All  attempts  to  ex- 
plain thought  in  terms  of  physical  energy  have  been 
absolutely  futile,  and  experienced  thinkers  have  prac- 
tically abandoned  the  problem.10  To  convert  mo- 
lecular motion  (physical  energy)  into  feeling  or 
thought  would  be  quite  contrary  to  the  principle  of 
conservation  of  energy.  This  has  been  considered 
(p.  61).  If  consciousness  has  been  caused  by 
molecular  motion  in  the  brain,  then  it  must  cease 
with  the  destruction  of  that  organ;  but  if  motion  in 
the  brain  only  accompanies  consciousness  (so  far 
as  our  experience  extends),  then  there  is  absolutely 
nothing  in  the  facts  of  the  psycho-physical  parallelism 
to  forbid  the  conclusion  that  consciousness  may  con- 
tinue after  the  destruction  of  the  brain,  under  condi- 
tions different  from  those  of  our  physical  life.  John 
Fiske  puts  the  case  against  materialism  strongly 
enough  when  he  says :  "The  materialistic  assumption 
that  thought  cannot  exist  in  the  absence  of  a  cerebrum, 
and  that  the  life  of  the  soul,  accordingly,  ends  with 
the  life  of  the  body,  is  perhaps  the  most  colossal  in- 
stance of  baseless  assumption  that  is  known  in  the  his- 


l0Herbert  Spencer  in  earlier  editions  of  his  First  Principles  tried  to  show  how  physical 
energy  might  be  transformed  into  feeling.  But  in  the  last  edition  (1900)  he  withdraws 
from  this  position  and  calls  attention  to  the  change  as  one  of  the  most  important  in 
the  book  (see  Fiske,  Life  Everlasting,  p.  74). 


306    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

tory  of  philosophy.  No  evidence  for  it  can  be  alleged 
beyond  the  familiar  fact  that  during  the  present  life 
we  know  the  soul  onty  in  its  association  with  the  body, 
and  therefore  cannot  discover  disembodied  soul  with- 
out dying  ourselves.  This  fact  must  always  prevent 
us  from  obtaining  direct  evidence  for  the  belief  in 
the  soul's  survival.  But  a  negative  presumption  is 
not  created  by  the  absence  of  proof  in  cases  where,  in 
the  nature  of  things,  proof  is  inaccessible.  With  his 
illegitimate  hypothesis  of  annihilation  the  material- 
ist goes  beyond  the  bounds  of  experience  quite  as 
widely  as  the  poet  who  sings  of  the  New  Jerusalem 
with  its  river  of  life  and  its  streets  of  gold.  Scien- 
tifically speaking,  there  is  not  a  particle  of  evidence 
for  either  view"  (Destiny  of  Man,  p.  110).  We  may 
conclude,  then,  that  the  position  that  the  brain  creates 
the  mind  is  untenable.  It  is  far  more  reasonable — 
more  in  harmony  with  the  facts — to  believe  that  we  as 
personal  beings  have  a  ground  of  conscious  existence 
other  than  that  physical  organism,  upon  which  we  do 
indeed  seem  so  entirely  dependent  under  the  condi- 
tions of  our  present  life.  This  means  that  there  is 
nothing  in  the  results  of  modern  science  to  forbid  a 
belief  in  immortality.  Indeed,  the  somewhat  negative 
argument  from  science  amounts  practically  to  a  vindi- 
cation of  the  belief  in  immortality  as  wholly  reason- 
able and  not  out  of  harmony  with  the  fundamental 
faith  of  science.  It  prepares  the  way  for  the  positive 
argument  which  must  always  be  on  broad,  moral 
grounds.    We  turn  therefore  to 

Grounds  of  Belief  in  Personal  Immortality — from  Philos- 
ophy. But  if,  now,  the  brain  cannot  be  regarded  as 
the  ground  or  ultimate  cause  of  our  conscious  exist- 


CHRISTIAN  FAITH  IN  IMMORTALITY  307 

ence,  the  question  remains,  What  is  the  relation, 
then,  between  the  brain  and  the  conscious  personal 
life?  One  well-known  answer  is  that  the  brain  is  not 
to  be  regarded  as  the  producer  but  the  transmitter  of 
consciousness.  This  means  that  through  the  brain  as 
the  medium  we  receive  that  consciousness  which 
makes  us  sentient,  rational  beings.  But  from  whence 
does  this  consciousness  come  to  us  through  the  brain 
as  transmitter?  The  answer  given  is  from  the  "Con- 
sciousness of  the  Universe,"  that  is  to  say,  from  God. 
Professor  James,  in  his  Ingersoll  Lecture  on  "Human 
Immortality"  (1898),  expounds  this  "transmission 
theory"  with  his  usual  brilliancy  of  style.  Material 
things,  as  he  holds,  and  the  whole  natural  order  mask 
the  Infinite  Reality,  which  is  the  sole  ground  of  those 
finite  streams  of  consciousness  we  call  our  private 
selves.  Through  the  brain  as  a  transmitter,  he  sug- 
gests, come  gleams  of  the  eternal  light  from  the  great 
"mother  sea"  of  reality  beyond. 

But  any  form  of  transmission  theory  clearly  implies 
the  antecedent  existence  of  the  transmitter.  The 
brain  must  precede  that  particular  stream  of  con- 
sciousness which  it  transmits.  Thus  the  brain  be- 
comes the  absolute  prerequisite  for  our  finite  con- 
scious life,  and  the  question  remains,  What  becomes 
of  the  conscious  life  of  the  individual  when  the  trans- 
mitter is  broken?  And  if  this  is  all,  are  we  really  any 
better  off  so  far  as  assurances  of  our  personal  immor- 
tality are  concerned  than  we  were  under  the  material- 
istic doctrine  which  assumed  that  the  brain  produces 
consciousness? 

But  this  is  not  all.  The  parallelism  between  brain 
and  conscious  life  is  the  same  whatever  our  interpre- 


308    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

tation.  That  is,  there  are  two  orders  of  related  facts. 
On  the  one  hand  we  have  the  physical  facts — mo- 
lecular motion  in  the  brain;  on  the  other  hand  the 
mental  facts — a  stream  of  thought  and  feeling  in  the 
mind.  What,  now,  is  the  explanation  of  the  exact  and 
constant  parallelism?  The  mind  does  not  create  the 
brain;  nor  does  the  brain  create  the  mind.  In  an- 
swer we  must  say  that  both  find  their  ground  and 
harmony  in  the  personal  self.  We,  as  persons,  as 
personal  selves,  are  the  only  adequate  explanation 
of  the  correlation  of  brain  and  mind.  Unless  we  seek 
an  interpretation  of  the  functional  relation  between 
brain  and  consciousness  in  some  factor  higher  than 
both  we  cannot  reach  any  rational  grounds  for  the 
faith  in  our  own  personal  existence  after  death.  But 
this  is  not  all.  We  are  finite  selves,  that  is,  persons, 
having  wills  relatively  free,  and  thus  we  are  inde- 
pendent sources  of  activity.  But  we  certainly  cannot 
think  of  ourselves  as  the  only  ground  of  the  parallel- 
ism between  brain  and  consciousness.  We  may  have 
the  power,  within  limits,  to  direct  the  stream  of  our 
mental  activity  which  makes  us  what  we  are;  we 
may  use  the  brain  as  an  instrument  of  our  conscious 
activity  much  as  the  violinist  uses  his  violin;  but  it 
is  very  certain  that  we  did  not  create  the  instrument, 
nor  are  we  responsible  for  its  structural  excellencies 
or  defects.  Now  the  ultimate  ground  of  this  finite 
personal  life  which  consists  in  the  constant  use  by  the 
immaterial  self  of  a  material  instrument  must  be  the 
Infinite.  God  is  the  only  explanation  of  the  constant 
parallelism  between  physical  function  and  our  con- 
scious personal  life.  There  is  absolutely  no  rational 
basis  for  a  belief  in  personal  immortality  except  in 


CHRISTIAN  FAITH  IN  IMMORTALITY  309 

God.  And  the  only  ground  for  our  assurances  of 
immortality  is  the  eternal  will  of  God  who  created 
the  finite  spirit  not  as  temporary  and  fleeting  mani- 
festation of  his  eternal  consciousness,  but  as  a  part 
of  a  moral  order  of  existence.  Here  we  strike  the  bed- 
rock. And  it  will  be  noted  at  once  that  the  funda- 
mental position  is  that  of  Christian  theism.  No  other 
world-view  finds  any  place  for  a  belief  in  personal 
immortality. 

And  personality  itself  must  be  regarded  not  as  a 
merely  temporal  attribute  of  the  finite  spirit,  but  as 
eternal.  Here  is  where  theism  parts  company  with 
all  forms  of  pantheism.  According  to  pantheism,  the 
end  of  our  human  life  marks  the  end  of  our  individual 
existence.  Any  immortality  of  which  the  pantheist 
may  speak  means,  not  the  continuance  of  a  particular 
personal  life,  but  the  survival  of  the  finite  in  the  In- 
finite. If  this  means  the  end  of  that  particular  stream 
of  consciousness  called  myself,  it  is  very  difficult  to 
see  in  what  respect  the  immortality  of  pantheism 
really  differs  from  annihilation.  And,  in  fact,  it  does 
not. 

If,  now,  physical  death  destroys  the  transmitter 
through  which  comes  that  particular  stream  of  con- 
sciousness which  I  know  as  myself,  how  is  that  par- 
ticular stream  of  consciousness  to  continue?  Does 
not  the  destruction  of  the  brain  deprive  the  Infinite 
Mind  of  the  condition  through  which  any  particular 
finite  consciousness  may  be  expressed?  There  is  only 
one  answer  to  this  difficulty,  which  will  save  our 
belief  in  the  continuance  of  personal  existence.  The 
alternative  is  the  pantheistic  conception  of  our  im- 
mortality through  absorption  in  the  Infinite.    There- 


310    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

fore  we  turn  at  once  to  this  answer.  It  is  this:  The 
brain  as  the  instrument  of  our  conscious  personal  life 
is  not  the  product  of  our  activity,  but  is  a  creation 
of  God,  the  Personal  Infinite.  Upon  this  instrument 
our  conscious  life  under  the  present  conditions  of  our 
human  existence  does  indeed  depend.  And  with  the 
destruction  of  the  instrument  which  seems  so  essen- 
tial to  the  conditions  of  our  personal  life  here,  we  arc 
not  able  to  conceive  how  that  personal  life  can  go  on 
at  all  except  as  we  believe  that  the  Infinite  Creator, 
who  has  given  the  finite  personal  spirit  so  wonder- 
ful an  instrument  of  expression  in  the  brain,  can  also 
give  that  spirit  another  instrument  when  the  brain  is 
destroyed.  It  is  essentially  this  which  Saint  Paul 
expounds  in  the  fifteenth  chapter  of  First  Corinthi- 
ans. The  difficulty  of  the  Greek  Christians  at  Corinth 
was  not  as  to  the  possibility  of  a  continuance  of  spir- 
itual life,  but  how  such  continuance  could  be  con- 
ceived after  death.  "With  what  sort  of  a  body  do  they 
come?"  wras  the  real  difficulty  (verse  35).  Paul  rests 
the  whole  argument  upon  the  power  and  purpose  of 
God.  He  says,  in  substance,  that  as  wTe  recognize  God 
as  the  Creator  of  the  bodies  of  the  various  orders  of 
animal  existence,  and  that  these  bodies  are  suited  to 
the  conditions  under  which  these  various  animals 
live,  so  we  may  believe  with  confidence  that  the  same 
divine  power  and  purpose  will  create  for  us  bodies 
suited  to  the  conditions  of  the  life  of  the  spirit,  beyond 
death. 

It  has  been  urged  that  the  difficulty  of  conceiving 
how  identity  could  be  continued  when  the  soul's 
medium  of  expression  has  been  destroyed  militates 
against  this  view.    But  this  is  not  true  wrhen  the  basis 


CHRISTIAN  FAITH  IN  IMMORTALITY  311 

of  identity  (and  therefore  recognition)  is  seen  to  be 
personal  and  spiritual  and  not  material.  You  may 
not  have  seen  your  old  friend  for  years.  Materially, 
he  is  greatly  changed — his  hair  white,  his  features 
altered,  etc.  Your  first  exclamation  may  be,  "I  would 
hardly  have  known  you!"  But  as  you  sit  before  the 
fire  in  personal  fellowship,  the  identity  seems  com- 
plete, and  in  spite  of  the  changed  material  aspects  you 
recognize  again  and  again  the  marks  and  character- 
istics of  your  friend  of  years  ago.  But  is  not  the 
basis  of  these  recognitions  personal  and  spiritual 
rather  than  physical?  A  most  important  way  in 
which  the  physical  body  serves  the  personal  life  is  in 
this  matter  of  personal  recognitions.  And  we  may 
well  believe  that  whatever  the  nature  of  the  instru- 
ment or  medium  of  the  soul  which  God  will  grant  us 
in  the  life  beyond  death,  it  will  be  not  only  perfectly 
adapted  to  the  conditions  of  that  life,  whatever  they 
may  be,  but  will  also  preserve  such  elements  of  con- 
tinuity and  identity  that  the  power  of  personal  recog- 
nition (such  an  indispensable  matter  in  our  earthly 
fellowships)  will  be  fully  and  perfectly  conserved. 

But  memory  is  absolutely  necessary  to  the  contin- 
uation of  personal  identity.  This  is  the  one  power  of 
the  mind  which  enables  us  to  aflQrm  the  continuance 
of  our  self  as  the  permanent  and  abiding  factor  in  the 
midst  of  constantly  changing  mental  experience. 
What,  now,  shall  be  said  to  the  objection  that  mem- 
ory, since  it  depends  upon  certain  cerebral  function- 
ings  which  are  now  clearly  recognized,  cannot  be  con- 
ceived as  continuing  after  the  brain  is  destroyed?  It 
is  undisputed  that  an  injury  to  a  certain  portion  of 
the  brain  will  produce  lapse  of  memory.     And  when 


312    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

through  disease  or  advanced  age  incipient  degenera- 
tion of  the  cerebral  cortex  begins,  the  powers  of  asso- 
ciation are  greatly  weakened  and  the  mental  ability  to 
recall  past  events  is  seriously  diminished.  But  if  the 
essential  thing  about  memory  were  a  mechanical 
"registration"  through  some  supposed  rearrangement 
of  the  particles  in  the  tissue  of  the  cortex,  as  we  some- 
times hear,  then  it  would  follow  that  the  oftener  a 
thing  were  repeated  the  firmer  it  would  be  impressed 
in  memory.  But  this  is  very  far  from  being  the  case. 
A  sentence  consisting  of  nonsense  may  be  repeated 
many  times  and  not  remembered,  while  a  sentence 
whose  meaning  is  clear  may  often  be  recalled  with  a 
single  reading.  Thought  which  arouses  interest  may 
be  carried  in  the  memory  and  reproduced  with  ease, 
while  thought  which  does  not  arouse  interest  will  not 
be  long  retained.  This  means  that  the  cerebral  func- 
tion is  by  no  means  the  only,  nor  even  the  most  im- 
portant element  in  memory.  Cerebral  functions  are 
very  important,  to  be  sure,  but  they  do  not  originate 
memory,  nor  does  memory  necessarily  depend  upon 
them.  The  mind's  activity  is  the  essential  matter  in 
memory.  The  material  of  the  cerebral  cortex  is  en- 
tirely replaced  in  a  few  years,  or  even  a  few  months, 
depending  upon  mental  conditions.  And  in  spite  of 
this  changing  of  the  material  medium  in  which  im- 
pressions are  supposed  to  be  "registered,"  the  mind  is 
able  to  recall  events  after  the  lapse  of  seven,  fourteen, 
forty  years.  And  if  ideas  and  feelings  may  be  thus 
recalled  in  vivid  memory  after  the  passage  of  a  human 
lifetime — when  the  material  of  the  brain  has  been 
replaced  again  and  again — it  is  perfectly  reasonable 
to  believe  that  the  personal  spirit  will  be  able  to  re- 


CHRISTIAN  FAITH  IN  IMMORTALITY  313 

tain  in  memory  a  content  of  meaning  from  human 
experiences  sufficient  to  guarantee  the  personal  con- 
tinuity of  the  life  beyond  death  with  the  life  of  the 
present. 

The  so  called  metaphysical  argument  for  immortal- 
ity need  not  long  detain  us,  for  it  has  but  little  bear- 
ing upon  Christian  faith.  Here  come  the  formal 
attempts  to  demonstrate  the  immortality  of  the  soul 
like  that  of  some  of  the  mediaeval  schoolmen  and  Des- 
cartes. The  argument  is  really  an  empty  form  of 
proof,  and  consists  in  starting  with  a  definition  of  the 
soul  which  contains  by  implication  the  conception  of 
immortality  and  unfolding  this  implication  with  due 
logical  formality.  The  purely  verbal  character  of 
the  performance  will  be  evident  to  anyone  who  care- 
fully scrutinizes  Descartes'  so-called  proof  of  immor- 
tality. The  more  modern  form  of  the  argument  gen- 
erally consists  in  viewing  the  soul  as  an  emanation  of 
the  Infinite  and  therefore  partaking  of  the  nature  of 
the  Infinite.  On  such  a  view  the  human  soul  is  neces- 
sarily immortal.  But  on  such  a  view  the  human  soul 
is  also  preexistent,  since  it  is  viewed  as  a  part  of  the 
Infinite  and  hence  does  not  have  either  its  end  or  its 
beginning  in  time.  This  argument  rests  upon  the 
conception  of  the  Infinite  as  impersonal,  and  there- 
fore, of  course,  does  not  concern  itself  with  such 
matters  as  moral  purpose  in  divine  creation.  But  we 
have  already  set  forth  the  reasons  why  we  reject  the 
metaphysics  of  the  Absolute  with  its  impersonal  view 
of  existence.  It  is  sufficient  to  point  out  that  the 
above  view  is  not  only  pantheism  but  implies,  when 
thought  out,  both  preexistence  and  some  form  of 
transmigration.    We  are  saved  from  this  abyss  by  the 


314    FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

Christian  emphasis  upon  personality  as  the  ultimate 
reality,  both  on  the  plane  of  the  divine  and  the  human, 
and  by  the  recognition  of  the  moral  as  that  which  is 
of  supreme  and  eternal  worth. 

This  brings  us  to  the  ethical  argument  for  immor- 
tality, which  is  much  more  significant  and  convinc- 
ing. The  great  fundamental  assumption  of  our  per- 
sonal view  of  life  is  that  the  universe  is  not  only  ra- 
tional but  ethical.  Moral  purpose  no  less  than 
rational  consistency  is  necessary  to  the  comprehen- 
sion of  this  cosmic  order  as  it  is  presented  to  us  in 
experience.  And  at  bottom  the  ethical  and  the  ra- 
tional will  be  found  to  be  not  two  aspects  of  existence, 
but  essentially  one.  Our  human  life  cannot  long 
appear  as  rational  without  those  great  ethical  ideals 
and  motives  which  alone  give  it  meaning.  This  is 
what  is  implied  in  the  statement,  often  made,  that 
without  the  saving  conception  of  moral  values  ( which 
are  eternal)  being  slowly  realized  in  human  society, 
existence  itself  is  a  fearful  and  incomprehensible 
riddle.  Some  of  the  pessimistic  thinkers  have  said 
this  and  are  saying  it  to-day  with  varying  degrees  of 
emphasis. 

But  the  pertinent  question  here  is  whether  the  few 
years  of  our  human  life  are  a  sufficient  time  for  the 
soul  to  realize  to  any  extent  the  eternal  moral  values. 
That  a  good  beginning  is  made  in  the  lives  of  those 
who  strive  for  the  "things  of  the  spirit"  is  undoubt- 
edly true.  But  shall  we  say  that  physical  death  ends 
it  all?  That  just  as  the  soul  begins  to  attain  some  of 
the  heights  and  to  come  within  sight  of  others  as  yet 
unattained,  a  final  end  comes  of  all  the  upward 
strivings  of  the  spirit?     Surely,  this  does  not  com- 


CHRISTIAN  FAITH  IN  IMMORTALITY  315 

mend  itself  to  our  thought  as  the  law  of  a  rational  uni- 
verse where  moral  values  are  alone  sufficient  to  solve 
the  deeper  problems  even  of  our  human  life.  Here, 
then,  is  the  gist  of  the  ethical  argument.  However 
it  may  be  expounded  or  illustrated,  the  argument  for 
immortality  from  the  supreme  value  of  personality 
and,  therefore,  of  moral  values,  lies  in  this  fact,  that 
the  upward  progress  of  the  human  spirit  away  from 
the  animal  and  material  toward  the  higher  realms  of 
the  eternal  and  the  spiritual  seems  only  well  begun  in 
the  fleeting  years  of  our  present  life.  If  there  is  a 
great  principle  of  the  conservation  of  moral  energy  in 
the  realm  of  spirit,  as  there  is  such  a  principle  for  the 
physical  realm,  then  it  is  difficult  and  even  irrational 
to  believe  that  physical  death  can  end  the  evolution 
of  an  eternal  life  in  the  human  soul.  In  that  beautiful 
biography  of  the  rare  woman  who  for  many  years 
was  his  wife,  Professor  Palmer,  of  Harvard,  says  with 
fine  restraint,  "Though  no  regrets  are  proper  for  the 
manner  of  her  death,  who  can  contemplate  the  fact 
of  it  and  not  call  the  world  irrational,  if  out  of  defer- 
ence to  a  few  particles  of  disordered  matter  it  excludes 
so  fair  a  spirit?"  n 

But,  in  the  last  analysis,  our  only  reason  for  belief 
in  the  conservation  of  moral  values  lies  in  the  per- 
sonal and,  therefore,  ethical  character  of  God  himself. 
The  universe  is  the  manifestation,  not  of  the  play  of 
blind  and  impersonal  forces,  but  of  the  moral  pur- 
pose of  the  personal  Infinite.  Holding  to  this  great 
truth  as  the  basis  of  all  our  thinking  about  human 
life,  we  dare  to  affirm  as  the  only  rational  conclusion 
that  moral  values  are  indeed  supreme — that  character 


11  Life  of  Alice  Freeman  Palmer,  by  George  Herbert  Palmer,  p.  327. 


316  FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

abides.  There  is  no  scrap-heap  in  the  universe  of  God. 
Lotze  has  a  noble  utterance  in  the  Microcosmus.  He 
says :  "That  will  last  forever  which  on  account  of  its 
excellence  and  its  spirit  must  be  an  abiding  part  of  the 
order  of  the  universe;  what  lacks  that  preserving 
worth  will  perish.  We  can  discover  no  other  supernal 
law  of  our  destiny  than  this,  but  this  is  itself  inappli- 
cable in  our  human  hands.  We  dare  not  presume  to 
judge  and  determine  which  mental  development  wins 
immortality  by  the  eternal  significance  to  which  it  has 
raised  itself,  and  to  which  development  immortality 
is  denied.  We  must  not  seek  to  decide  whether  all 
animals  perish  or  whether  all  human  souls  are  imper- 
ishable, but  must  take  refuge  in  the  belief  that  to 
each  being  right  will  be  done."  12 

3.  Faith  in  the  Life  beyond  Death,  a  Spiritual 
Achievement.  We  have  now  traced  the  early  develop- 
ment of  the  belief  in  immortality  and  have  found 
that  it  came  to  its  finest  flower  in  the  faith  of  the 
followers  of  Jesus.  We  have  also  noted  some  of  the 
weightier  considerations  from  science  and  philosophy 
which  lend  support  to  the  belief  in  personal  immortal- 
ity. But  there  is  one  important  truth  which  ought  to 
be  emphasized  before  the  discussion  is  brought  to  a 
close.  It  is  this :  A  study  of  the  matter  wTill  convince 
us  that  the  men  who  have  grasped  this  truth  of  per- 
sonal immortality  with  the  clearest  insight  and  the 
greatest  intensity  of  conviction  are  those  into  whose 
life  has  come  the  fullest  realization  of  fellowship 
with  God  in  sacrifice  and  service  of  their  fellow  men. 
This  means  that  the  conviction  of  life  after  death  is 
not  only  a  matter  of  belief  well  grounded  in  rational 


11  Microcosmus,  English  translation,  vol.  i,  p.  389. 


CHRISTIAN  FAITH  IN  IMMORTALITY  317 

thinking,  but  is  also  a  matter  of  faith.  And  the  essen- 
tial thing  about  faith  is  that  it  means  personal  rela- 
tionship in  confidence,  trust,  and  love.  In  the  last 
analysis,  this  great  conviction  of  eternal  life  is  a  spir- 
itual achievement.  It  is  wrought  out  not  in  argument 
but  in  experience.  No  man,  however  well  he  may 
learn  to  reason,  can  long  enjoy  here  a  conviction 
amounting  to  certainty,  if  in  his  life  there  is  not  a 
profound  faith  in  God  and  a  sense  of  fellowship  with 
God.  Immortality  thus  becomes  not  only  an  item  of 
our  creed  but  a  fact  of  our  experience.  Conviction 
of  life  eternal  flows  from  character  far  more  than 
from  cogent  reasoning.  The  man  who  is  living  a  life 
in  which  love  finds  little  place — a  life  of  selfish  disre- 
gard for  his  fellow  men — a  life  devoted  to  the  super- 
ficial pursuit  of  pleasure,  a  life  in  which  greed  for 
gain  is  the  dominant  motive,  may  say,  "I  cannot  be- 
lieve in  immortality ;  I  see  no  evidence  for  it."  And 
the  answer  is,  "Why  should  you?  What  have  you  ever 
done  to  entitle  you  to  the  high  spiritual  privilege  of 
really  grasping  as  your  own  the  great  truth  of  the 
immortal  life?" 

And  do  we  not  here  find  the  secret  of  the  fact  that 
faith  in  immortality  does  not  thrive  and  grow  strong 
on  mere  reasoning?  After  the  weightiest  arguments 
have  been  restated  the  heart  is  really  not  satisfied.  A 
vague  feeling  of  uncertainty  and  dread  will  come 
stealing  over  the  spirit  of  the  earnest  inquirer  from 
time  to  time.  We  may  shake  it  off  only  to  find  it  com- 
ing back  as  we  are  called  now  and  again  to  stand 
near  the  grave  of  one  we  knew.  Is  there  no  way  to 
banish  doubt  and  misgivings  and  to  establish  in  the 
heart  that  quiet  but  deep  certainty  in  which  the  soul 


318  FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

can  rest?  There  is  but  one  way.  And  that  is  through 
faith  in  Christ.  And  faith  in  Christ  will  enable  us  to 
realize  in  personal  experience  the  great  spiritual  fact 
of  a  fellowship  with  the  Eternal  Himself.  The  Old 
Testament,  as  we  have  seen,  has  very  little  of  a  doc- 
trine of  immortality.  But  in  some  of  the  psalms  there 
is  such  a  positive  and  glorious  expression  of  the  soul's 
realization  of  spiritual  union  with  God,  that  the  tide 
of  faith  in  eternal  life  comes  in  strong  and  full  when 
the  soul  attains  such  an  experience : 

Nevertheless  I  am  continually  with  thee:  thou  hast  holden  me 
by  my  right  hand. 

Thou  shalt  guide  me  by  thy  counsel,  and  afterward  receive  me 
to  glory. 

Whom  have  I  in  heaven  but  thee,  and  there  is  none  upon  earth 
that  I  desire  beside  thee. 

.  .  .  God  is  the  strength  of  my  heart,  and  my  portion  for  ever. 
(Psa.  73.  23-26.) 

The  New  Testament,  especially  the  letters  of  Paul, 
abound  in  those  expressions  which  indicate  a  per- 
sonal realization  in  experience  of  a  union  in  loyalty 
and  affection  with  Christ.  The  title  of  our  present 
chapter  is  Justified.  It  is,  indeed,  the  Christian  faith 
in  immortality.  For  this  great  conviction  grows 
strong  in  the  life  not  as  the  cogent  conclusion  from 
plausible  premises,  but  as  the  spiritual  resultant  of 
Christian  living.  The  historic  fact  of  Jesus's  resur- 
rection cannot  be  overestimated  in  its  importance  to 
the  beginnings  of  faith  in  Christ  among  his  followers. 
But  our  faith  in  him  rests  far  more  upon  all  that  we 
know  him  to  be  than  it  does  upon  that  occurrence  in 
the  garden  long  ago.  Indeed,  were  it  not  for  all  we 
know  Christ  to  be  through  the  spiritual  triumphs  of 
the  intervening  ages  and  through  the  testimony  of  our 


CHRISTIAN  FAITH  IN  IMMORTALITY  319 

own  heart,  we  could  not  probably  accept  the  record  of 
that  event  in  the  garden  long  ago  as  Ave  do.  We  do 
not  accept  Jesus  as  divine  simply  because  he  rose 
from  the  dead.  Rather  do  we  accept  the  record  of  his 
resurrection  as  reasonable  and  fitting,  now  that  we 
know  him  to  be  divine.  And  so  in  a  very  true  sense 
Christ  himself  is  the  strength  of  our  faith  in  the 
eternal  life.    He  is  "in  us  the  hope  of  glory." 

And,  finally,  experience  teaches  us  also  that  it  is 
much  easier  to  believe  in  immortality  when  we  are 
living  the  kind  of  life  that  is  worthy  of  being  im- 
mortal. Trivial  living,  selfish  living,  invariably 
cause  the  fires  of  the  immortal  hope  to  burn  low  in 
the  heart.  Living  under  the  domination  of  great 
motives  brings  to  the  soul  the  conviction  that  eternal 
life  may  indeed  begin  here  and  now,  even  as  Jesus 
said.  No  life  was  so  pure,  so  lofty  as  his,  and  he  lived 
in  the  very  atmosphere  of  eternity. 

I  walked  one  autumn  day  in  the  pine  woods  with 
my  friend  who  was  battling  with  the  white  plague. 
He  was  a  noble  spirit.  He  had  just  entered  full  man- 
hood. Life  lay  all  before  him  and  hope  had  been  high. 
But  the  fight  was  now  on  and  he  knew  he  could  not 
win.  We  sat  down  to  rest  under  a  venerable  tree 
which  had  stood  there  in  the  forest  many  times  the 
span  of  our  earthly  years.  "Why  is  it  thus?"  he 
whispered.  My  only  answer,  "Dear  fellow,  life  is 
larger  than  we  now  see.  We  know  Him.  Let  us  be- 
lieve firmly  that  the  seeds  of  disease  cannot  end  the 
life  He  gives.  We  know  Him,  we  love  Him,  we  must 
trust  Him." 


Date  Due 

" 

■ 

(§) 

Princeton  Theological   Semmary-Spei 


1    1012  01015  1852 


